• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • NEWS+OPINIONS
    • NEWS TO US
    • COLUMNS
      • APPARENT HORIZON
      • DEAR READER
      • Close
    • LONGFORM FEATURES
    • OPINIONS
    • EDITORIAL
    • Close
  • ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT
    • FILM
    • MUSIC
    • COMEDY
    • PERFORMING ARTS
    • VISUAL ARTS
    • Close
  • DINING+DRINKING
    • EATS
    • SIPS
    • Close
  • LIFESTYLE
    • CANNABIS
      • TALKING JOINTS MEMO
      • Close
    • WELLNESS
    • GTFO
    • Close
  • STUFF TO DO
  • TICKETS
  • ABOUT US
    • 5 DOUBLE-U’S
    • MASTHEAD
    • DISTRIBUTION
    • ADVERTISE
    • SUBMISSIONS
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • Close
  • BECOME A MEMBER

Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 23.05 – 4/8/21

HELP SAVE LOCAL NEWS ON GIVING TUESDAY

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted December 3, 2019 Filed Under: COLUMNS, Letters, NEWS+OPINIONS

Somerville News Garden "Real News" event. Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.
Somerville News Garden “Real News” event. Photo by Derek Kouyoumjian.

 

A Letter from BINJ

 

Dear neighbors,

 

Four and a half years ago, we founded the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism to tell the local stories that weren’t being told anywhere else. We’ve done that by hiring local journalists to investigate their own communities and by sharing their coverage with both regional and national news organizations.

 

We are the media makers who:

 

  • Exposed law enforcement for unchecked gun and Taser procurement statewide;
  • Shed light on Boston’s corrupt and racist system of granting liquor licenses to bars and restaurants;
  • Demonstrated how the Cambridge city council and the Massachusetts state government allowed a big real estate concern to convert the publicly-owned Sullivan Courthouse into yet another major commercial property rather than a desperately-needed major affordable housing development;
  • Investigated money and influence in the opioid recovery industry.

 

When we launched, we thought that we’d be supporting existing local news outlets. What we quickly discovered was that we were producing some of the only hard-hitting local reporting left in some communities—and the situation has only gotten worse as time goes by. For example, over the last year alone, Massachusetts lost at least 32 local newspapers as GateHouse Media consolidated 50 papers into 18 in advance of its highly problematic merger with Gannett Co., Inc. 

 

This rolling collapse of news media serving American cities and towns—following their purchase by ever more aggressive giant media conglomerates—now threatens our beleaguered democracy.

 

It is that crisis that has led us to expand our mission and work. And to do that, we need your support.

 

This year, we began a ground-breaking pilot project in Somerville, a city with only one full-time paid reporter. There, with our help, community activists have started the Somerville News Garden, a grassroots effort designed to help a city talk to itself again. 

 

In just one year we have:

 

  • Held two significant public events—February’s Somerville Community Summit involving 115 Somervillians, 22 Somerville civic organizations, and 15 area journalists discussing what kind of news is no longer getting covered in the city, and November’s Real News, Fake News, No News: Reviving Local Journalism in Somerville educational forum involving 42 attendees;
  • Formed a grassroots research group that is surveying residents to determine what kind of local news media Somervillians want and need;
  • Started a Neighborhood Media School that will teach area residents basic journalism skills sufficient to cover their own neighborhoods;
  • And recruited over 30 volunteers.

 

Somerville’s just the start. Once the Somerville News Garden is fully up and running, we will bring the news garden model to cities and towns across Massachusetts.

 

That’s not all we are doing. We know that local residents can’t be expected to replace an entire industry. That’s why we are also engaged in educating state legislators on the need to pass a bill (H.181) to create a Mass journalism commission that we hope will lead to direct public support for local news production in municipalities like Somerville. Over the summer, we impressed a key legislative committee by organizing 80 journalists, leaders of journalist organizations, student journalists, and journalism professors from public colleges to attend a second hearing on the bill that our reporting caused State House leaders to hold. We’re now meeting with bill sponsors to work with us to improve the bill language before moving on to organize a statewide coalition to push the bill to passage.

 

All these efforts and many more are only possible with your generous and regular assistance.

 

So this Giving Tuesday, we’d like to encourage you to support journalism in the public interest in Massachusetts by donating whatever you can to BINJ.

 

Please click here to back reporting and community organizing that serves our democracy by bringing neighbors together—at a time when anti-democratic forces are doing their damnedest to keep people isolated… and ignorant of news that affects their future. 

 

With your help we can produce strong investigative reporting that “afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted,” and reestablish the local news organizations that can guarantee democracy remains strong in the Commonwealth for decades to come.

 

Sincerely,

 

Chris Faraone, John Loftus, and Jason Pramas

Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism 

 

P.S. Your support is needed to keep local news alive in Massachusetts. Don’t wait. Please give now.

CHRIS FARAONE

A Queens, NY native who came to New England in 2004 to earn his MA in journalism at Boston University, Chris Faraone is the editor and co-publisher of DigBoston and a co-founder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. He has published several books including 99 Nights with the 99 Percent, and has written liner notes for hip-hop gods including Cypress Hill, Pete Rock, Nas, and various members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

More from author
  • CHRIS FARAONE
    https://digboston.com/author/chris-faraone/
    DEAR READER: THE POLITICAL SEASON IS UPON US. EMBRACE IT.
  • CHRIS FARAONE
    https://digboston.com/author/chris-faraone/
    VIDEO: CHECK OUT THE NEW DIG MUSIC ISSUE - ON STREETS NOW!
  • CHRIS FARAONE
    https://digboston.com/author/chris-faraone/
    DEAR READER: VOCAL ABOUT LOCAL
  • CHRIS FARAONE
    https://digboston.com/author/chris-faraone/
    SPECIAL FEATURE ON THE MASS STATE POLICE: TROOPER WILSON’S WAR

Filed Under: COLUMNS, Letters, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: #GivingTuesday, appeal, BINJ, Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, donate, donation, fundraiser, fundraising, Give, Giving Tuesday, letter, news, reporting

WHAT’S NEW

PICS & RECAP: COMMUNITY CANDLE VIGIL HONORING VICTIMS OF ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE

PICS & RECAP: COMMUNITY CANDLE VIGIL HONORING VICTIMS OF ANTI-ASIAN VIOLENCE

CAMBRIDGE CHURCH MINISTER SPEAKS ABOUT RECENT VANDALISM OF SIGN

CAMBRIDGE CHURCH MINISTER SPEAKS ABOUT RECENT VANDALISM OF SIGN

PRESSLEY MEETS WITH LOCAL 26 WORKERS

PRESSLEY MEETS WITH LOCAL 26 WORKERS

THE HOUR THAT THE SHIP COMES IN

THE HOUR THAT THE SHIP COMES IN

JANEY OFFICIALLY DECLARES THAT SHE WILL RUN FOR FULL TERM

JANEY OFFICIALLY DECLARES THAT SHE WILL RUN FOR FULL TERM

"Boston Sunset" by walknboston is licensed under CC BY 2.0

EDITORIAL: DIGBOSTON SEEKS CLIMATE IDEAS FOR MAYOR KIM JANEY

Primary Sidebar

HEMPIRE FREEDOM PACK 25% OFF

FEATURED EVENT

Most Popular

  • rally to protest discrimination and crimes against Asian and Pacific islanders during Stop Asian Hate rally on Boston Common in Boston PICS & RECAP: “STOP ASIAN HATE BOSTON” RALLY ON THE COMMON by KEIKO HIROMI
  • VACCINE EQUITY NOW! COALITION ASKS BAKER TO ALLOCATE 20% OF NEW DOSES TO HARD HIT COMMUNITIES by SHIRA LAUCHAROEN
  • A NEW PLACE FOR MORE PEOPLE TO CALL HOME IN TOUGH TIMES by MARK EMMONS
  • A FAREWELL TRIBUTE (OF SORTS) TO MARTY WALSH by DIG STAFF
  • RESEARCHERS SHOW EXTENT OF LOBBYING AGAINST CLIMATE BILLS IN MA by JON LAMSON

READ CURRENT MEMBER EDITION

DIG Member 2.1 – March 2021

READ CURRENT STREET ISSUE

DIG 23.05 – 4/8/21

Footer

digbos

digbos
EDITORIAL: DIGBOSTON SEEKS CLIMATE IDEAS FOR MAYOR EDITORIAL: DIGBOSTON SEEKS CLIMATE IDEAS FOR MAYOR KIM JANEY. Environmental organizations and individual activists invited to submit opinion articles for publication. https://digboston.com/editorial-digboston-seeks-climate-ideas-for-mayor-kim-janey/ #politics @boston_mayor #environment #globalwarming #climate #activist #callforsubmissions #policy #Boston #Massachusetts
“Most are some of my favorite bars or local clas “Most are some of my favorite bars or local classics that I’ve learned to love in my time living in the city. Others just have a great facade that I know would make a great drawing.” https://digboston.com/drawn-but-not-forgotten-local-artist-sketches-beloved-boston-restaurants/ #art #artist #sketch #drawing #Boston #Massachusetts #bar #restaurant
Despite #pandemic hurdles, Mass #music instructors Despite #pandemic hurdles, Mass #music instructors hit new high notes. “My #teaching has gone to another level.” https://digboston.com/the-medium-is-the-maestro/ #education #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
From the podcast to the book, Wayne Federman chron From the podcast to the book, Wayne Federman chronicles the business of joke-telling. https://digboston.com/the-history-of-stand-up-from-mark-twain-to-dave-chappelle/ #comedy #history #book #interview #Boston #Massachusetts
“I’m calling on some of you to drop by a local “I’m calling on some of you to drop by a local field office and hear what people have to say.” https://digboston.com/dear-reader-the-political-season-is-upon-us-embrace-it/ #politics #commentary #election #Massachusetts
“I think most people agree that we want our publ “I think most people agree that we want our public dollars to go to those companies that are not cutting corners.” https://digboston.com/bill-seeks-to-penalize-contractors-for-unsafe-conditions/ #politics #legislation #construction #safety #labor #Massachusetts
“It’s just shocking to me for Massachusetts, t “It’s just shocking to me for Massachusetts, the state that puts itself forward as this paragon of democracy. Those are just fundamental building blocks of a democratic society.” https://digboston.com/researchers-show-extent-of-lobbying-against-climate-bills-in-ma/ #environment #globalwarming #climate #crisis #politics #lobby #Massachusetts
I was lucky enough to get an extra #vaccine. Here’s how it went down. https://digboston.com/young-healthy-and-inoculated/ #young #youth #student #college #vaccination #publichealth #health #Boston #Massachusetts #coronavirus #COVID19
The MBTA confirmed that it will “fully fund its The MBTA confirmed that it will “fully fund its operating budget in the coming fiscal year and begin to restore cut service.” https://digboston.com/public-transit-public-good-responds-to-restoring-mbta-service/ #transportation #politics #Massachusetts
MASSHOLES LIKE BAKER BECAUSE REASONS: Suffolk/Glob MASSHOLES LIKE BAKER BECAUSE REASONS: Suffolk/Globe #poll finds governor’s height to be much admired. https://digboston.com/massholes-like-baker-because-reasons/ #politics #Massachusetts
Load More... Follow on Instagram
Social Buttons

DigBoston facebook DigBoston Twitter DigBoston Instagram

Masthead

About

Submissions

Advertise

Privacy Policy

Customer Service

Distribution

About Us

DigBoston is a one-stop nexus for everything worth doing or knowing in the Boston area. It's an alt-weekly, it's a website, it's an e-mail blast, it's a twitter account, it's that cool party that you were at last night ... hey, you're reading it, so it's gotta be good. For advertising inquiries: [email protected] To reach Editorial: [email protected] For internship opportunities: [email protected]