Ridgewood-Glen Rock Patch Editor laid off as part of a large-scale company restructuring
August 17,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood , NJ, capping months of speculation , yesterday it became official , James Kleimann the Editor of the Glen Rock Patch was laid off. While the fate of the digital news service is not know AOL the corporate owner of the “Patch” has been struggle financially with the “hyper local” news service for some time .
Rumors of massive layoffs recently come to a head .Read Armstrong Confirms “Hundreds” Of Layoffs At Patch, 400 Sites Shuttered Or Partnered Off, And A New CEO ( https://theridgewoodblog.net/armstrong-confirms-hundreds-of-layoffs-at-patch-400-sites-shuttered-or-partnered-off-and-a-new-ceo/)
In the last couple of years The Glen Rock Patch had come under heavy local criticism for being a bit to cozy with the current Mayor of the Village ,and sources inside AOL told us that this over ‘cozy” relationship made the corporate owners “uncomfortable” .
In the defense of James the Ridgewood blog staff does think its a bit tacky for the Patch to have a poll :
Changes at Patch?
Posted by Simon Templar , August 16, 2013 at 09:19 PMIt would appear as though long time Ridgewood Patch editor James Kleimann is no longer with Patch; is this ture?
On that note the staff of the Ridgewood blog would like to wish James all the best and will refrain from piling on at this moment.
THIS IS ON PATCH!
Before you read about it elsewhere, I want to be the one to tell you that I will not longer be running Ridgewood-Glen Rock Patch. I was laid off today as part of a large-scale company restructuring. I do not know what that means for the site going forward. Hopefully it can continue to serve as a tremendous resource for the community.It’s been an honor covering Ridgewood – a community I call home – and Glen Rock. I’m proud of the work I produced over the last three years. More importantly, I feel very fortunate to have met so many great people.
I wish you all the best.–– James Kleimann
The Patch was not a ‘must read’ but somedays I did read a few articles. Too much agenda and not enough straight local news. I wish JK the best.
As for AOL, maybe they can just drop the pretense of journalism and run a feed straight from HuffPo.
whats the mayor going to do ?
He had no problem reporting a Pro- Paul agenda and turning this village upside down. Good riddance.
At least James K could form coherent sentences on his blog.
This journalist in training was manipulated by people in power. Had he pursued the truth the outcome might have been brighter. No one likes to see young people lose jobs.
He did a great job. Don’t kick a guy when he is down.
Take a look at some of the surrounding town patch sites. Rwood/GR patch was by far the most locally informative of all of them, which created a very active discussion platform for both sides of the aisle. Like him or not that kid was everywhere. AOL probably just lost the most visited patch in this area.
The grammatical and factual errors were rampant. Farewell to a nonjournalist.
The Patch is a blog just as this site is a blog. He was not a journalist in my mind. And his allegiance to Mayor Aronsohn made him lose credibility with residents.
I am quite sure the mayor is already busy schmoozing with the new editor of the patch. Aronsohn is so unbelievably insecure, he has to ingratiate himself with every reporter he can in order to try and control the reports about him. Here on the blog the mayor has no pull and for that I sincerely appreciate James Foitlyn.