Pros
The two stars are coming from the fact that this job is really flexible, which is great. It's nice to be able to work from home/be able to travel and work. I also really love the idea of hyperlocal reporting, but Patch often doesn't execute it well. The benefits were great. The writing is easy, but that's not much of a pro since it's mostly clickbait and didn't challenge me at all as a journalist (I didn't feel at all like a journalist when I was working here).
Cons
I have never worked somewhere with worse communication. You'd think the company would overcompensate with great comm. since everyone is working so far away from one another, but they just...don't. The most communication I'd get is a weekly call (sometimes) from my manager telling me what I did wrong that week. I'm all for constructive criticism, and take it seriously, but when you're NEVER told what's going right, or lauded for any kind of small achievement, you lose confidence that you're doing any kind of a good job. There needs to be a balance. I was routinely told that my stories weren't getting enough clicks—this is what the company is all about. Patch didn't care about quality, so long as you were churning stuff out like Buzzfeed. They made no attempt, although they claimed they did, to help me work on whatever it was that I was doing so wrong. Management is also very top-heavy for no reason. I'm really glad I was let go, because the job was a stressful, anxious half year for me.