Some thoughts from a working journalist A few days ago I was at a local hospital for a routine test, and I got to talking to the tech administering it. She asked what I did. I said that I’m a journalist. And her reaction was very much of this era. She started talking […]
DOUBLE HAPPINESS: FOUR YEARS OF BINJ, TWO YEARS OF DIGBOSTON
Celebrating the simultaneous anniversaries of the Hub’s most independent news outlets As I’ve written on numerous occasions, Chris Faraone, John Loftus, and I run two very different enterprises simultaneously: an independent alternative weekly newspaper, DigBoston; and an incubator dedicated to producing longform investigative reporting, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ). We’re experimenting […]
GATEHOUSE STRIKES AGAIN: WORCESTER MAGAZINE ON THE ROPES
Time for journalists and readers to fight back against the destruction of American newspapers Over the holiday weekend, my wife and I had occasion to take the commuter rail out to Dedham to a family gathering in memory of loved ones who have left us. As we walked the mile to my cousin’s […]
CAMBRIDGE COUNCILORS CAN STOP UNDEMOCRATIC COURTHOUSE DEAL
Four votes against the proposed leasing of city parking spaces should do the trick
MORE DEMOCRACY NEEDED TO SURVIVE GLOBAL WARMING
Or: Free the Wu Train The hits just keep on coming from climate scientists—as they drop big global warming studies with increasing regularity. Fielding data and projections that look ever more depressing. Most recently, a new report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services says that not […]
MORE ACTIVISM NEEDED IN STATE AND LOCAL POLITICS
Solely spending your money and free time on presidential pageants is unwise The other day my colleague Chris Faraone made an interesting comment on social media—inveighing against those who lavish money on presidential candidates with the next national elections still a year and a half away: We held a forum for the […]
LANDLORDS’ VIEWS ON RENT CONTROL… REFUTED
Or: fun with Boston Globe comments Most everyone has had the experience of reading something particularly enraging in the comment area below many online newspaper articles. I think it’s quite normal to feel frustrated and helpless in that situation. Because the nastiest opinions often appear to be the most popular ones. And there […]
HOW TO DO PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATION FOR DIGBOSTON
In “an age of ubiquitous images” At the start of this year, I wrote an editorial on how to write for DigBoston that proved quite popular and led to an increase in the number of article pitches we get from freelance journalists weekly. But it also led a growing number of photographers and […]
A WORD ABOUT RICH KIDS IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT
(And in oppositional politics in general) For Earth Day, I’d like to write in brief about an internal dilemma the environmental movement is facing. Because if activist campaigns aimed at mitigating or stopping global warming have been failing to effect the necessary political, economic, social, and cultural changes toward that goal—as I think […]
NONPROFIT MODEL NOT A PANACEA FOR AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA
Would-be reformers need to keep that in mind A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about a bill (S. 80) filed with the Mass legislature by Rep. Lori Ehrlich (D – Marblehead) and Sen. Brendan Crighton (D – Lynn) that aims to start a volunteer commission to assess the state of local […]
