AOL/Patch executive Marcia Parker: Live chat, Feb. 14

Marcia Parker

We’ll chat live from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 with Marcia Parker, West Coast editorial director for Patch.com, the hyperlocal-news venture in which AOL has invested tens of millions of dollars.

At Patch, Parker has hired more than 150 journalists herself. The venture has “hired more than 750 this past year, and as our CEO has said publicly, we aim to have 1,000 sites launched in 2011,” she said in an e-mail. “We are still hiring for the remainder of our sites planned for 2011.”

Ina recent article,  The New York Times put the pay of those journalists at $38,000 to $45,000 annually, but Parker said, “We have not discussed salary info publicly nor confirmed what the NYT reported.”

AOL's hyperlocal venture, Patch.com, is operating in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Before joining Patch, Parker was launch manager for California Watch, part of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. She taught at and was assistant dean at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She’s been a director of programming for AOL’s small-business channel and assistant managing editor at Intuit’s Quicken.com, the personal-finance website.

She also is a veteran journalist, having been a reporter and editor with several news organizations, including Crain’s New York Business and the Contra Costa Times, where she was business editor, and then managing editor. Parker also founded  and served as editor of two magazines, one a regional  magazine and another for South Asian women.

Parker graduated from Indiana University with a degree in journalism and political science and earned a master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

At 1:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 14, bring your questions here for Parker on Patch, hyperlocal news, entrepreneurship and the skills you need for digital media.