Letter from the Editor: Exciting Development for Patch

Dear readers,

Today it was announced that Patch's parent company, AOL, will be acquiring the popular news website the Huffington Post, and Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post's Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, will be appointed President and Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will bring together all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Patch. 

According to the press release issued this morning, "The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age— leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL's infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post's pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement."

Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL, praised Huffington for her innovative approach to online journalism:

"Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation," he said. "Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company."

Huffington added, "By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better."

Clearly this is very exciting news, and a strong move toward raising Patch's visibility online and in the communities it serves.

While the details of this new organizational structure have yet to be released, the transaction is expected to be concluded by late first- or early second-quarter.

We will keep you up to date on these developments at Patch. Thank you for your readership, and as always, feel free to email me with any questions or suggestions at benjaminl@patch.com.

Best wishes,

-Ben Lasman

Editor, North Haven Patch