Editor's Note: Patch.com Parent AOL Buys HuffingtonPost

The media and the blogosphere have been buzzing this morning over the announcement that Patch.com parent company AOL has acquired popular online news site HuffingtonPost.

As you're aware, Kent Patch is one of close to 800 hyper-local news sites operated by Patch across the country. In the coming days, you're likely to hear and read lots of inaccurate information — or purely incorrect guesses — as to what effect this acquisition will have for Patch sites.

This acquisition is likely to have little direct effect on sites like Kent Patch, but the honest answer is we don't know yet.

What I can tell you is that we'll keep doing the same thing we've been doing — reporting on important local news first. So while you're free to speculate, I'd encourage you to take a look at the press release issued by AOL announcing the acquisition, or you can read Arianna Huffington's own words about the acquisition, as she'll serve as president and editor-in-chief of AOL's new division, The HuffingtonPost Media Group.

Matt Fredmonsky

Editor, Kent Patch