And the simple thing chefs can do to help sufferers Last Saturday night, my wife and I went out for drinks and snacks at a well-known local restaurant. It’s the kind of place that can get expensive if you’re having a full meal, but isn’t too pricey for a couple of small plates. […]
DON’T BUY WHAT CAMBRIDGE MAYOR MCGOVERN IS SELLING
An East Cambridge courthouse update It’s sad when a local public official claims powerlessness before real estate developers, the market, and state government. But that’s exactly what Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern is doing in the latest round of the already half-century long East Cambridge Courthouse saga. Which I wrote about in some detail […]
NO MOONSHOT REQUIRED
Can a neoliberal columnist for a billionaire’s newspaper understand that a better MBTA is possible if we tax the rich (and make public transportation truly public)? It’s hardly a secret that I’m no fan of Boston Globe columnist Shirley Leung’s writing on matters political and economic. Which clearly reflects her belief that bringing […]
SECOND HEARING ON MA JOURNALISM COMMISSION BILL A SUCCESS
Over 80 journalists, journalism students, and professors answer DigBoston’s call to turn out Amazingly, I’m on my first real vacation in four years this week. But I think it’s important to pen a truncated version of my usual column to thank the 80 plus people (about half of whom were journalism students… yay!) […]
GIVE MA JOURNALISM COMMISSION SEATS TO WORKING JOURNALISTS
This week, I joined fellow journalists, journalism educators, and members of the public at large in testifying on a bill to form a Mass journalism commission that is currently before the state legislature. In view of the potential importance of the initiative, my column this week is simply the text of my testimony. For […]
NO MASS COMMISSION TO STUDY JOURNALISM WITHOUT REPORTER INPUT
Between the countless white papers already in existence and the obvious reality on the ground that any reporter who has been in the game for more than a year can tell you about, there is already more than enough information to start planning ways to reverse the destruction that the likes of leeches such as Gatehouse Media have wrought in Mass.
THE RIGHT QUESTION FOR THE BROAD LEFT
On July 5, start asking the Democrats, “What policies will help working families?” The patriotic season is upon us. With it comes the arrival of the 2020 presidential race—far too early, in my estimation. Which in turn tends to generate conservative political ripples all the way down to the local level in the […]
SECOND HEARING CALLED ON MA JOURNALISM COMMISSION BILL
After some fast action by your pals at DigBoston and BINJ Almost immediately after rising on Monday, I knew that I wasn’t going to have a normal start to my week. Production on DigBoston commences over the weekend for my colleagues and me, and concludes early Wednesday morning when each issue goes to […]
HOW TO FIND NEWS YOU CAN TRUST
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 […]
