Patch Layoffs Affect Montgomery County News Sites
Hundreds of employees with AOL’s hyperlocal news site Patch were laid-off in a major restructuring that will bring the number of sites nationally from more than 900 down to about 250, according to multiple reports.
Patch has 11 news sites in Montgomery County run by three editors. As of Wednesday, all of the sites are still live, but two of the editor’s profiles have been removed from the websites.
Tiffany Arnold, local editor of the Gaithersburg, Rockville and Germantown Patch sites posted on Twitter Wednesday afternoon that she “…. is out of a job.”
There is no immediate information on which Patch sites will remain active.
In an interview with MyMCMedia, one former Patch employee, who asked not to be identified, said the lay-offs came unexpectedly.
“No warning, no head’s up…this is your last day, you have email access until 5 p.m., thank you very much,” the former Patch local editor said.
Patch laid off about half of its staff in August and October of last year. Earlier this month Hale Global took control of Patch from AOL and is currently restructuring management.
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