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Dig Bos

The Dig - Boston's Only Newspaper

CURRENT STREET EDITION

DIG 23.02 – 1/28/21

Boston Globe

DEAR GLOBE READERS LAUNCHES AS PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGN

Written by SHIRA LAUCHAROEN Posted January 26, 2021 Filed Under: News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS

With platforms online and in print, the campaign serves as an outlet for reporters facing challenges at The Boston Globe.

Filed Under: News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: Boston Globe, Journalism, workers

BLATHER REPORT: GLOBE COVERAGE OF JANUARY ‘WARM PATCH’ INAPPROPRIATELY OPTIMISTIC

Written by JASON PRAMAS Posted February 6, 2020 Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS

[T]here was no mention of global warming or climate change anywhere in the article. An unconscionable omission by the Globe at the start of a new geological age experts are now calling the Anthropocene... whether it was the fault of the reporters or their editors.

Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: Apparent Horizon, Boston Globe, Climate Change, Column, criticism, Democracy, global warming, Jason Pramas, Journalism, news, weather

FILM CRITIC PETER KEOUGH’S OUTSTANDING NEW BOOK IS FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted December 26, 2019 Filed Under: A+E, Books, Film

Kids are sweet, and I liked being a kid, but I wanted to avoid any rose-colored looks at childhood. I actually thought it was going to be too dark when I handed the manuscript in.

Filed Under: A+E, Books, Film Tagged With: books, Boston Globe, Boston movies, Boston Phoenix, China Gate, film criticism, For Kids of All Ages, Interviews, movie criticism, National Society of Film Critics, Peter Keough, theaters, wizard of oz

CONSULTANTS TOLD STATE POLICE HOW TO AVOID TURMOIL. THE DEPARTMENT IGNORED THE ADVICE AND SPENT THE FOLLOWING DECADES SPIRALING TOWARD CORRUPTION.

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted October 10, 2019 Filed Under: FEATURES, News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS, Non-fiction

From several dozen troopers facing criminal charges in an expansive payroll fiasco, to drunk-driving drill instructors and other one-offs, the follies continue.

Filed Under: FEATURES, News, News to Us, NEWS+OPINIONS, Non-fiction Tagged With: #mapoli, AMMO, attorney general, Axon, Beacon Hill, Boston Globe, BPD, Camfour, Charlie Baker, Coakley, CommBuys, Commonwealth, contacts and contracts, criminal justice, Cultural Diagnostic of the Massachusetts State Police, Dana Pullman, Deval Patrick, Ed Markey, Emerson, emerson college, Engagement Lab, Environmental Police, feature, features, Fire Sale, firearms, GOAL, gun control, gun dealers, gun laws, gun licenses, guns, Healey, history, Journalism, Jurek Brothers, karyn polito, licenses, licensing, Linder & Associates, Maine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mass, Mass Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Mass State Police, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Tasers, massacres, MDC Police, Michael Dukakis, MSP, MuckRock, National Rifle Association, Newtown, NRA, OCPF, ONA, Online News Association, OSD, Parkland, Paul Cellucci, pistols, Police, police militarization, reporting, reports, Republicans, Robert DeLeo, school shootings, Smith & Wesson, SPAM, state police, statistics, straw purchasing, stun guns, Taser, Tasers, Team Reporting Tagged With: AG, Virginia

THERE’S MUCH MORE TO THE MASS STATE POLICE SCANDAL THAN IS BEING REPORTED

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted August 21, 2019 Filed Under: News, NEWS+OPINIONS

After SPAM received the full payment, its then-treasurer told investigators that Pullman demanded a check for $250,000 for Lynch Associates, pounding the table and yelling “Stop breaking my f**cking balls and give me the check!” when the treasurer questioned him.

Filed Under: News, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: #mapoli, AG, AMMO, attorney general, Axon, Beacon Hill, Boston Globe, Camfour, Charlie Baker, Coakley, CommBuys, Commonwealth, contacts and contracts, Deval Patrick, Ed Markey, Emerson, emerson college, Engagement Lab, Environmental Police, feature, features, Fire Sale, firearms, GOAL, gun control, gun dealers, gun laws, gun licenses, guns, Healey, history, Journalism, Jurek Brothers, karyn polito, licenses, licensing, Maine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mass, Mass Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Mass State Police, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Tasers, massacres, Michael Dukakis, MSP, MuckRock, National Rifle Association, Newtown, NRA, OCPF, ONA, Online News Association, OSD, Parkland, Paul Cellucci, pistols, Police, police militarization, reports, Republicans, Robert DeLeo, school shootings, Smith & Wesson, state police, statistics, straw purchasing, stun guns, Taser, Tasers, Virginia, wbur

NO MOONSHOT REQUIRED

Written by JASON PRAMAS Posted July 24, 2019 Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS

MBTA Red Line train on the Moon (with astronaut and Moon Lander)

 

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 big corporations to Boston and shovelling public money at them is the best way to improve the city’s fortunes. And she’s none too picky about what corporations she supports either. Despite recently criticizing Wayfair’s $200,000 sale to a government contractor doing business with baby concentration camps near the Mexican border, she has had no difficulty at all shamelessly flacking for companies like General Electric and Amazon. Both of which, as I’ve written on numerous occasions, have done far worse things to the people of the Bay State and the world than Wayfair has done to date.

 

That said, Leung is certainly right to focus on the growing Massachusetts public transportation crisis in her recent columns. But I disagree with her analysis and prescriptions, as ever. So naturally I take issue with her piece of July 18, “Red Line’s slow service, explained.” Which, though framed around a not-very-illuminating interview with MBTA general manager Steve Poftak, is problematic on two grounds.

 

First, she continues to include herself among Boston’s legions of long-suffering commuters. Despite having only started regularly taking the T to work from her Milton home in June 2017 (as chronicled in the cringe-worthy column “Is the T ready for me to be a daily commuter?”) after the Globe moved its offices from its old Dorchester building (which offered free parking) to a new office downtown (which does not). And having loudly declared her “defection” from our beleaguered public transportation system but a fortnight back. Choosing to drive, take Uber or “work from home” instead since last month’s Red Line derailment caused serious damage that will likely continue to delay service for at least a few more weeks until it is fully repaired. Options that are simply not available to many T riders who aren’t senior journalists at major news outlets—and struggle to cover ever-rising T fares… forget car payments or Uber rides. And working from home remains a pipe dream for most. 

 

Second, she tries to compare the regional mobilization that will be required to fix the T to the massive national effort that went into putting astronauts on the moon in the following chestnut of an opening paragraph: “Fifty years ago, American ingenuity landed man on the moon. Here in Boston, we’ll settle for the Red Line running on time.” Which is just silly. But silly in a way that I think is worth unpacking.

 

My colleague Suren Moodliar, co-author of the forthcoming book A People’s Guide to Greater Boston (University of California Press) and a fellow socialist, criticized the space race frame in a useful way on Facebook: “Leung reveals a huge obstacle to transit justice and a reloaded MBTA: the liberal class’s low expectations. Calling for a ‘moonshot,’ she asks Beacon Hill to aim for ‘a reliable MBTA’ by 2030. Forget a Green New Deal or any visionary upgrades that brings mobility, employment, and transit justice to grossly underserved communities and clean, green mass transit to connect everyone, let’s get the same old lousy MBTA, but just more reliably so.”

 

When I asked him to expand on that theme, he replied, “The iconic struggle of the Civil Rights Movement was about transportation. In fact, the campaign around Rosa Parks is something the MBTA has co-opted—her image appears in every bus! Twenty-first century transportation justice is about access to safe, affordable, efficient and healthy transportation. It also means that all communities should have a real say in planning transportation and its supply in ways that are meaningful for their everyday lives and employment. For this to be realized in a sustainable way, we really need to re-imagine aspirations that existed more than a century ago when Boston beat NYC in the race underground—to relieve congestion, to get people where they wanted to go, to add to a complementary network of streetcars—all at a time when the city was coming to realize that public goods could be best provided by publicly-owned entities. Weld real 21st-century needs onto that and you have a model for an MBTA reloaded. One that provides good jobs while achieving green goals … more than just carbon mitigation, decongesting our streets and our lungs! This is not rocket science, not a space shot, but common sense.”

 

So the trouble with Leung’s position on public transportation is not that she’s wrong to be concerned about it… it’s that she’s willing to speak for the working people of Boston and declaim that “we” would be all set if the state comes up with a few billion dollars to get the MBTA “running on time.” Without ever delving into how great the system could be if public transportation was publicly run and completely responsive to community needs—rather than having more and more of its functions outsourced to often comically greedy and inefficient corporations by hapless capitalist ideologues like Gov. Charlie Baker. Or asking why the Commonwealth doesn’t have the money required to meet the public’s actual transportation needs. And deal with our related jobs and environmental crises in the bargain.

 

Also, Leung never mentions the fact that if corporations and the rich were forced to pay taxes at the rates they did in the 1950s, all of the necessary new infrastructure—and much more besides—could be built without pause. Yet these are the same corporations Leung perennially supports dumping public treasure on. Because… reasons? 

 

I mean like, what? Trickle-down economics? Deregulation? Privatization? We’re supposed to buy the Reagan-era con that bribing big companies to move to a place that gives up the right to tax them properly, enforce labor and environmental standards, and stop them from moving elsewhere at a moment’s notice somehow benefits that place? And the linked myth that letting corporations and their owners get richer will somehow make everyone else richer too? Seriously, why would anyone think that actively encouraging endless economic war between municipalities, states, and nations over which polity can transfer the most public wealth to private interests substitutes for any kind of rational economic policy? Why would anyone believe any of this nonsense? Global elites have pushed this model of disaster capitalism on the world’s peoples—Americans included—for over 40 years now, and it has done nothing but enrich the few, immiserate the many, and accelerate the destruction of the planet.

 

No one, neoliberal propagandists like Leung least of all, should be surprised when the proverbial chickens that the rich and powerful have foisted on the looted countries of the global south now come home to roost here in the states. One cannot endlessly boost the private sector at the expense of the public sector, slash labor standards, end run democratic processes, and then bemoan that the T is falling apart for lack of funds. 

 

Readers should mull all that over for now. I’ll return to public transportation and other major policy areas again and again in columns to come. But as for Shirley Leung, I’d say she has to decide which side she’s on before she’s going to be much use as a columnist. She really can’t have it both ways: purporting to speak for the masses while cheerleading for billionaires. 

 

Apparent Horizon—recipient of 2018 and 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia Political
 ...  read more

Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: Amazon, Apparent Horizon, Boston Globe, Civil Rights Movement, Column, Democracy, General Electric, Gov Charlie Baker, Jason Pramas, MBTA, Moon, neoliberal, neoliberalism, public transportation, Shirley Leung, socialism, socialist, Suren Moodliar, Wayfair

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT GUNS IN MASS (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK)

Written by BOSTON INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT JOURNALISM Posted May 8, 2019 Filed Under: FEATURES, News, NEWS+OPINIONS, Non-fiction

Gun laws, limits, and licensing in Mass—in perception and reality

Filed Under: FEATURES, News, NEWS+OPINIONS, Non-fiction Tagged With: Beacon Hill, Boston Globe, Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick, Emerson, emerson college, Engagement Lab, Fire Sale, firearms, GOAL, gun dealers, gun laws, gun licenses, guns, history, Journalism, licenses, licensing, Maine, Mass Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, Massachusetts, massacres, Michael Dukakis, MuckRock, National Rifle Association, Newtown, ONA, Online News Association, Parkland, Paul Cellucci, pistols, Republicans, Robert DeLeo, school shootings, Smith & Wesson, statistics, straw purchasing, Virginia, wbur

GLOBAL WARMING NEEDS FRONT PAGE COVERAGE

Written by NICK BAIN Posted April 17, 2019 Filed Under: Op-Ed

Filed Under: Op-Ed Tagged With: Boston Globe, criticism, ecology, Environment, Extinction Rebellion, global warming, Journalism, media, news, Politics, Protest

THE FALL OF THE GE BOSTON DEAL, PART II

Written by JASON PRAMAS Posted March 6, 2019 Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS

Filed Under: Apparent Horizon, COLUMNS, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: Attorney General Maura Healey, Boston, Boston Globe, capitalism, Column, corporation, corruption, Democratic Socialists of America, DigBoston, DSA, economy, End Corporate Welfare Act, ethics, GE, General Electric, Governor Charlie Baker, Great Recession, independent commission, investigation, Jason Pramas, Journalism, Julia Salazar, labor, malfeasance, Massachusetts, mayor Marty Walsh, municipal bond, neoliberalism, Politics, scandal, Shaun Scott, subprime mortgage, tax, taxation

THE GLOBE AND WBUR WANT YOU TO PAY $10 TO HEAR CHARLIE BAKER TALK ABOUT HOW GREAT MASS IS ON GUNS

Written by CHRIS FARAONE Posted March 4, 2019 Filed Under: COLUMNS, Media Farm, NEWS+OPINIONS

"I was looking forward to sharing this event with my friends interested in confronting gun violence... but then I noticed the lack of representation for Black and Brown communities that are most disproportionately impacted by this crises and neglected in our policy responses."

Filed Under: COLUMNS, Media Farm, NEWS+OPINIONS Tagged With: Boston Globe, Charlie Baker, CitySpace, Fire Sale, Gun Violence, guns, Maura Healey, wbur

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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]