Dear Reader,
In a few weeks, from Feb 4 through Feb 11, our team is heading to New Hampshire for the action leading up to the First-in-the-Nation presidential primary. Specifically, a bunch of independent reporters in the orbit of DigBoston and our affiliate organization, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, will roll to the Granite State in buses and whatever buggies we can borrow, at which point we will post up at the Shaskeen Pub in Manchester, basically smack in the freaking center of it all.
Why am I telling you this?
There are a lot of reasons, as it turns out. Starting with our need for story leads—not the kind that you have to work in politics or live inside the Beltway to know about (though those tips are welcome as well); instead, the kind of information we are looking for is probably more like something that you and few others are privy to. Or maybe a whole bunch of people are aware of the revelation, but for some reason or another, no one is saying it, perhaps because it feels more like a local rumor than something of national import.
In such cases, I assure that everything you know and have to report about your experience and its connection of any sort to a candidate of note—so long as it is relevant and factual—is actually more useful than you may realize. Are you a contractor who lost their business because Donald Trump stiffed you? And now you’re following his campaign from state to state, shouting things at psycho sycophants? We want to hear from you. Or here’s a prime example of a local angle, this one from our last go-round in the Granite…
You may or may not or at least shouldn’t but probably don’t really remember the short but nevertheless doomed lunge for the White House by former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina. I could go on and on about the awful human being she is and will always be and so on, but what’s important here is that in her time at the helm she helped con more than a few state and municipal rubes out of subsidies that helped boost salaries for sharks, and Fiorina’s HP sunk its teeth into places like New Hampshire. We’re talking about broken promises and job losses—stuff that is insanely foul but that wouldn’t have received as much attention without our highlighting her depravity and calling out her lies in a nationally syndicated article. All because a former HP employee tipped us off with an email.
So there it is—we’re going to New Hampshire, and we want you to know all about it, to donate to our effort at givetobinj.org, and, if you have some fresh ideas, to go ahead and email us directly at editorial@digboston.com. This won’t be my last column about national politics this month, and I apologize ahead of time for the distraction plus assure you that we remain steadfast in our commitment to neighborhood and regional news. Still, New Hampshire presents a rare chance to confront pols who are at the top of the accountability chain in person, and that’s an opportunity that those of us who report on the ground, and actually witness the ripple effects of ineffective leadership in DC, cannot afford to miss.
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.