Get featured on Patch

To get featured on Patch, you need a story that matters to a specific town. There are three practical routes: post an event or announcement to your local Patch site yourself, send a news tip to the local editor who covers your community, or have a feature developed and placed with professional help.

Posting and pitching are free, but they work differently. A community post is your own listing, and a news story runs only if the local editor decides it is worth covering. DNA offers another way in: we develop the local angle with you, write the feature to Patch's standard, manage the placement, and you approve every word before it goes live.

What Patch is

Patch is a hyperlocal news network in the United States. Rather than one national front page, it runs separate local sites for individual towns, suburbs and neighbourhoods, and readers usually follow the Patch for the place where they live. That structure is what makes it useful: a story on Patch is read by the people in a particular community, not by a general national audience.

What Patch covers

Each local site mixes news written by Patch's local editors with material contributed by the community. Typical coverage includes local government and schools, crime and public safety, weather and traffic, new businesses opening and closing, property, and things to do. Alongside the news sit community events, announcements and posts from residents, businesses and local organisations. The tone is practical and local: what is happening on your street, in your school district and in your town hall.

How to get featured on Patch

Start by choosing the right community. Patch is organised by place, so a story pitched to the wrong town has little chance. Then decide which route fits what you have:

• A community post or event listing if you want local readers to know about a date, an opening or an announcement.
• A news tip to the local editor if something genuinely newsworthy is happening that local readers would want reported.
• A written feature if you want a fuller story about you, your business or your organisation, developed and placed with DNA.

When you contact a local editor, keep it short and specific: what happened or is about to happen, where, who is involved and why people in that town should care. Editors on Patch often look after more than one community, so a clear local angle makes their decision easier.

How to submit an event to Patch

Patch lets readers add events to their local site and publish community announcements, using a Patch account. This is the simplest way to put a date in front of local readers: a grand opening, a charity fundraiser, a class, a talk or a seasonal event. Write the listing plainly, include the place and time, and choose the community where the event is actually happening. Bear in mind that an event listing or community post is your own contribution. It is useful, but it is not the same as a story written about you.

What makes a strong story for Patch

Local relevance comes first. A restaurant opening on the main street, a dental practice expanding into a neighbouring suburb, a founder hiring locally, or a nonprofit starting a programme for families in the area all fit. So does a resident with real expertise explaining a question the town is debating, such as a zoning change or a school budget. Name the place and the people, say what changes for local readers, and leave out anything that reads like a sales pitch. If your story is national rather than local, a title such as USA Today is usually the better target.

How the process works

With DNA, the work runs in four steps. First, we check whether your story has a genuine local angle and which communities it belongs in, and we say so if it does not fit. Second, you share the substance: what you do, what is new and why it matters to people nearby. Third, we draft the feature to Patch's standard and revise it with you. Finally, once you approve every word, we manage the placement and send you the live link.

How long it takes

An event listing can go up as soon as you post it. A feature takes longer, because the angle, drafting, your review and the placement all need time. Expect weeks rather than days.