Dear Reader,
If you are one of those readers who check this column every week—and, more specifically, if you have whined publicly or perhaps emailed me directly asking that I stick to local issues—then please relax. I promise to get back to the regional grind shortly, but even as we wind down our coverage of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, I assure you that our journalists who reported nearly 40 stories out of the Granite State focused on issues that are either explicitly local, like what candidates would do about the potentially hazardous compressor station in Weymouth, as well as topics that impact people everywhere (you can read all our coverage at binjonline.org/manchesterdivided).
But before I tell you about how great our journalists are and you go on to read some of the standout dispatches that they produced in New Hampshire, I have a quick vignette to share which shows what kind of fustilarian frauds were providing primary coverage elsewhere.
On my third night in Manchester, I went to the hotel where all the big media types hang out. Looking for a beer and some quiet to watch the Friday night debate on television, I also found myself sitting beside a young Washington Post reporter and some Boomer dick from Boston’s racist talk radio sewer WRKO.
Eavesdropping on their chat, I was not surprised to hear the latter spew a dumpster’s worth of nonsense, from how he distrusts Elizabeth Warren due to her Native American heritage rub, to a rant about Pete Buttigieg that literally started with, “I’m not against the gays or anything …” But while I expected nothing short of savagery from a radio dolt who looks like the bald guy from the board game Guess Who?, I was then taken aback by how well he hit it off with the Post reporter.
Given, the preppy journo likely leans to the left, and was mostly humoring the sixty-something chatterbox. But when Bernie Sanders showed up on the screen, they both started to groan and attack with equal disdain. “He looks like Saul Alinsky in the body of Montgomery Burns,” the Post reporter joked, earning a hearty laugh from his new pal.
According to @chucktodd, who seems to be going out of his way to say ridiculous things tonight, a big thing that could happen soon and impact upcoming primaries is that the Kennedy family could weigh in. He just said that.#NHprimary2020 #NHprimary
— Chris Faraone (@Fara1) February 12, 2020
I’m not here to complain about the insanely awful coverage of Sanders, who at the time we are going to print appears to be about to win New Hampshire. Anyone with wi-fi can see the conspiracy of dunces at work for themselves, whether the negligent media culprit is George Stephanopoulos asking the candidates during the last debate if they have a problem with a Democratic Socialist heading the party, that idiot Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” referring to Sanders supporters as a “brownshirt brigade,” a Nazi reference, or “Hardball” hard-on Chris Matthews predicting open class-war executions in Manhattan.
Rather, my point is to draw a comparison between the horse-race repetition and robotic uniformity of the kind of trash commercial bigs, from putrid right-wing radio to elitist broadsheets like the Post, reported out of New Hampshire this week, and the unique features that our squad produced.
In this week’s news section, you will find truly stimulating ground coverage that dives into issues ranging from nuclear waste, to ranked-choice voting, to disability access. They are topics that readers, maybe including you, asked us to investigate.
And they’re like nothing you will read anyplace else.
CHRIS FARAONE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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.
