Rachel Feddersen
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About Rachel
Rachel is the Chief Content Officer at Patch. She joined the team in February 2012 from The Parenting Group, where she most recently served as Editorial Director, Digital Content, Strategy and Design, overseeing all digital development of the Parenting, Babytalk and Conceive brands and their online extensions. Under her leadership, the sites achieved record-breaking growth and won numerous industry honors and awards. Rachel was named Media Industry Newsletter’s Digital Content Strategist of the Year in 2010 and was inducted into the Media Industry Hall of Fame in 2011. Creating and editing websites since the mid-1990s, Rachel began her career as a journalist, with a focus on business, health and political reporting, and also served as one of the original six editors at Metrobeat (later CitySearch), a pioneer in the local space. Rachel earned a Master of Art & Technology degree from NYU as well as a BA in English from Amherst College.
Rachel lives in the fabulous Patch town of Montclair, NJ, with her husband and two young sons, and has discovered that the secret of happiness is a backyard garden, a good running route, and getting the coffee ready the night before.
The Board
Tina McMillan
5:03 pm on Saturday, May 25, 2013
Ms. Feddersen:
I am a online contributer to your SF area Patch, specifically Novato. We recently lost two local editors and underwent a complete format change.
I have tried to contact the new editor directly (former editors always responded to emails) and sent multiple suggestions for format change using Back Bay Patch as a template. No response, just more frustration.
If you could see the shift in content and the loss of many active bloggers with a genuine interest in local government you would understand how concerning this is. Since I couldn't find anyone else to respond I looked under founders and thought you might be able to help.
Novato Patch is our only source of local news. The Marin Independent Journal and the Novato Advance have been losing readership for the past decade.
Online news may be the one way we can keep up to date but having a viable format which is personalized to each communities needs is part of the picture. While Back Bay has done that, Novato Patch and the other Marin County Patch's have become so uniform as to be irrelevant.
stewart resmer
12:28 pm on Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Patch TOS policy is currently allowing an individual to comment, using the true and correct legal name of another unsuspecting individual, in order to comment while at the same time claiming the right to not publish their own true and correct legal name citing their privacy Patch's Nicholas Loffredo Regional Editor, Northern New Jersey gives tacit approval for this.
What am I missing?
It is my view that using the name of some one else in lieu of their own name in order to protect their own privacy, is a highly unethical thing for Patch to facilitate.
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Debbie
12:55 pm on Friday, February 1, 2013
Hi Ms. Feddersen,
My brother wrote and article on his Autistic step daughters for the Patch in Lake Elsinore. Because many of the people there do not believe in his politcal views they started to post comments claiming that he was under investigation by Child Protection Services for child molestation. These completely untrue comments were posted repeatedly. These same comments were then posted on various pages throughout the Patch. The editor refuses to remove these posts even though it is clearly a violation of your Acceptable Use Polices. The justifcation is that violations are subject to the discretion of the editor. However, that seems like a blatant violation to me. I would think that the Patch would like to encourage good writers to make contributions instead of making the afraid that they will to be subject to comments such as the above spreading throughout the internet.
Thank you for your time.
Maribel Ibrahim
1:20 am on Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Hi Rachel,
I am a Patch contributor and wanted to let you know about a national initiative that was sparked by local Patch coverage in SevernaPark.Patch.com. We're tracking the Patch coverage here http://www.startschoollater.net/patch-coverage.html, but we would love your support on spreading the news about this national issue. Short Hills, NJ and Montclair, NJ have already covered the story of Start School Later, which is now getting national coverage through our petition deliveries in DC. So far, 11 Patch sites have covered this issue, but we would love to add more.
Please let me know if I can provide you with more info.
Kind Regards,
Maribel Ibrahim
www.StartSchoolLater.net