Stephen Foley: Patch reporters clearly not connected to AOL’s brain

US Outlook Kudos to the Patch reporter in the audience when Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon's chairman, told a Chicago chamber of commerce meeting that the disaster-prone tech start-up "was like giving a seven-year-old a Ferrari; you're going to get a certain amount of chaos".

It was a great scoop. So why didn't it get picked up? The question is even more bizarre given that Patch, a group of hyper-local websites, is part of AOL and central to Arianna Huffington's grand vision for networked citizen journalism. It is easy to credit reports of operation chaos and infighting at AOL. Its "eyes and ears" on the ground, its Patch reporters, are clearly not connected to the media group's brain.