AOL Patch combines Wal-Mart and Real Housewives*

The LA Weekly has a story about AOL's Patch network, which pays a single reporter/editor to cover a single community with the help of a stringers. Critics alternatively compare Patch to Wal-Mart, for coming in to upend mom-and-pop newsites, and to the Real Housewives, for chasing ad dollars instead of news:

... instead of bringing journalistic eyes to spots that desperately need it, Patch isn't opening in Bell, Compton, South Gate, Vernon or Cudahy. It's taking the Real Housewives circuit: Beverly Hills, the West Valley and the Westside.

I don't think there's a Wal-Mart in Beverly Hills.

(found via LA Observed)

*Update: A writer for the West Hollywood Patch got caught plagiarizing. I've had my differences with the West Hollywood Patch before.