Legitimate Patch.com question

Quite frankly, I don't give a damn about the business model right now. I'm looking for freelance work, and they're paying better than the competition. If it lasts for anther couple months, so be it. If it lasts until 2013, awesome.

 

This.

 

Yeah, for freelance work, money's money. There's no problem with Patch if you're swooping in and making 50 bucks for an article here and there.

But like others have said, explain to me how this is a long-term business model. It's just not. I just don't see Patch offering job security, and you never know when AOL is going to pull the plug. They're very fickle in their media strategy.

 

I don't see newspapers offering a lot of job security these days either. Here, let me show you something ...

The whole business is a mess, dude.

 

Patch pays for freelance agate?

 

Here, too.

During Hurricane Irene and the aftermath, Patch had a major opportunity to bring in loads of readers. And.... It got its ass beat 6 ways to Sunday. Not by the local newspaper's website, actually, but by a local news internet site that's been around awhile. The local newspaper's site came in second with well-reported, if not timely, articles. Patch came in a distant third.

Our Patch recently put a young 20-something in charge after a 50-something had been in charge. No idea why. If you read the 20-something's bio on the site, it says his dream job is to cover stock car racing or some such. It reminds me of the line from the Eagles song, "I coulda been an actress but I wound up here." It's kind of like, "I could have covered cars, but I wound up as editor of shitty Patch site."

Anyway, people were actually buzzing about [Local Internet Site].com and its 24-hour updates and photos. The news from that site actually kept me going during 5 days without power. Patch seemed to take a couple of days off shortly after the hurricane. The photography was crappy. We had major flooding around here, including a house that was wiped off its foundation. [Local Internet Site].com had aerials of that, plus some award-caliber photography. They were also all over news about school closings.

So in my neck of the woods, I wouldn't say it's a case of folks being critical of "new ideas and technology." I think it's a case of somebody else with those same "new ideas and technology" doing it a whole lot better.

 

Or Harry Chapin's Taxi:

You see, she was gonna be an actress,
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off to find the sky.

 

I'm a little perplexed by those who think that Patch pays well. I've covered some games for them and gotten just $70, and in some cases, only $50. And sometimes I've had to send several follow up emails just to get paid. I suppose if you are 22 and living in your mom and dad's house, $50-$70 qualifies as good pay, but considering the fact that you have to write a story and contribute photos/videos, it seems like peanuts to me- esp. given the price of gas these days.

I'm curious to know- for those of you living in high cost of living places like DC or S. California how can you make a living just doing freelance work for sites like Patch, and other local papers?

 

$50-70 isn't a king's ransom, no, but it's definitely in the ballpark with most newspapers. You're a lot more likely to find a newspaper paying $30-40 for an assignment than $100 or more.

I remember getting $150 from one paper as my high-water mark for event coverage, and $100 a few times. Usually it was anywhere from $30 to $75.

 

This is, unfortuantely, also sometimes par for "old, respectable" print or other media operations. If anything, it sounds slightly less-hard to get your money out of them. If a follow-up email is the worst case scenario, that's far, far from the worst horror story I've heard about the teeth-pulling involved in getting the $$ you were promised as a freelancer.

 

Nobody anywhere should be working for those kind of rates. And anyone who does has forever forfeited the right to complain about pay in the news industry.

 

In a perfect world, maybe. But it's a buyer's market. At least I can reject stories if it's not worth my time. $50 to cover a college football game? Maybe, if it's nearby because i like football. $50 to cover a junior golf tournament 45 minutes from me? No.

God knows I wouldn't try to make freelancing my sole source of income, or a majority of it, or even a sizeable minority. More power to those that can and do, but unless you've got regular work with multiple publications, I don't know how it's workable.