Community Corner

Editor's Notebook: Patch Celebrates its 100th Site Launch

The hyperlocal news company crosses a major milestone.

One hundred is a milestone by many measures — 100 yards rushing in a football game, a 100-win season for a baseball team and the 100th year for a local business (Fairfield has one that old — and many decades more — at the corner of Pequot Avenue and Old Post Road in Southport.)

But launching a 100th news website at a time when many think the media, as an industry, are on the decline is a particularly impressive accomplishment and one worth celebrating.

That's what's happening here at Patch, as Patch launches its 100th hyperlocal news Web site today — just a year and-a-half after the first three sites launched simultaneously in Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn-Short Hills, N.J., in February 2009.

Find out what's happening in Fairfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Fairfield Patch was the 44th Patch to launch (on March 31) and was the eighth Patch in Connecticut. Since then, two more Patches have launched in the state and another 56 have launched in the country. Patches are now in nine states, and the hyperlocal news websites have generated a total of 55,000 articles and nearly 1 million photos.

What's that all mean to you?

Find out what's happening in Fairfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Well, if you live in Fairfield, it means you can read from three to five — and often more — fresh news and sports stories every day, along with continuously updated announcements and a calendar of events. All Patches also have a directory of all of their communities' schools, businesses, restaurants, churches, synagogues, libraries, parks, government offices — just about everything there is in their cities and towns.

In Fairfield, Bob Birge, Patch's sports' editor, has been covering Fairfield American's entrance into the Little League World Series like a blanket and from many different angles. The team plays its first game in the World Series on Friday, but, if you've been reading Bob's stories, and stories by the talented freelancer Alex Wiser, you already know that. Andrew James' photos and Robert Held's stories also have brought great credit to Fairfield Patch's coverage of local sports.

On the news front, we've been on top of a lot of the important stories happening in Fairfield, including the intricacies of the Fairfield Metro Center and the litigation surrounding it; the referendum on a $350,000 bonding request for a girls' Little League field; the state of town finances; an upcoming school redistricting and the $24.2 million expansion and renovation of Fairfield Woods Middle School; labor contracts that were rejected by the Representative Town Meeting; a $3.28 million plan to rebuild Penfield Pavilion; the Jewish Home for the Elderly's plan to amend town zoning regulations so it can build a new nursing home on its Jefferson Street property; Fairfield Beach residents seeking to squash the Clam Jam's resurrection; new businesses coming to town; the state of Exide's plan to clean up Mill River so its 6.25-acre vacant property can be developed; a proposal to restrict smoking on town beaches; and many more.

The Fire and Police departments have seen their share of news in the four and-a-half months we've been active as well, from a 12-year-old girl who helped to capture a burglar, a motorcyclist who died on the highway, two incidents of shots being fired at Fairfield Beach, several armed robbery arrests, and fires that caused significant property damage and, in one instance, claimed the life of an elderly man.

Talented Patch freelancers have written about the Great Fairfield Candy Mystery, the reopening of the beloved Devore's Bakery, and the twin downtown icons of Dairy Queen and Rawley's (Patti Woods); an up-and-coming rock band called Kicking Daisies and the iconic Chef's Table, where great music by local bands can be heard (Wendy Mitchell); the secret diary of Mark Twain (Nancy Burton); and a Fairfield man who retrofitted his car to run on battery power (Audra Carbone.) I know I'm missing some great feature and news stories by our talented freelancers and apologize in advance for their omission.

Andrew Hoover and Nancy DePalma have written some great restaurant reviews; Peter Gerstenzang's interviewed leading musicians of past and present before they perform at the Fairfield Theatre Company; and Robert Greenberger, a Patch columnist, has presented his take on a host of local issues and never fails to engender a lively (though sometimes too lively) debate in the comments' section.

Local video reporter Stephen Krauchick is equally adept at covering breaking news (fires and car crashes) and features (sand sculpting at the beach, rock climbing, and Eagle Hill School students shooting off rockets at the Fairfield Fire Training Center, among many other video reports.) Patch also benefits from the great video work of Mike Dominguez.

Since Fairfield Patch launched March 31, we've posted more than 850 stories. That works out to six a day (including weekends.) We hope you've been here long enough to read most of them, but, if you haven't, you can find all of them in our archives.

Patch's emphasis on local news, and giving a lot of latitude to local news editors, is what makes Patch unique and why it's growing by leaps and bounds. We're interested in anything that happens within the 30 square miles of Fairfield and hope you've enjoyed the site so far — and that you return many times in the future.

Of course, a lot of credit for all of the Patches goes to people whose names don't appear on the websites, but who play a vital role in posting events and announcements (thank you, Darcy Symes!) and ensuring that the Patch sites operate smoothly — something that's especially important for people over the age of 40 (like me) who didn't grow up in an age of computers.

Thanks to all the Patch readers who post their own announcements. We welcome them. Thanks too to the folks who comment on stories that are posted; we like them when they're on the issues.

Please keep your comments coming, be sure to check Fairfield Patch regularly and feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions at andrewb@patch.com.


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