Democracy requires public control of social media giants In this edition of DigBoston, our Editor-in-Chief Chris Faraone has already written at some length about how Medium—which is essentially a glorified blog farm with a puzzlingly opaque social media component—screwed our nonprofit, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ), a few days back by […]
TOWNIE: AIRLINES SUING, UMASS SCREWING
Corporate attack on workers rights and a corporate-style attack on UMB by UMA If there’s one thing I think people should do every day, it’s read the business press. Because that’s where you see how the world runs. A world that naturally includes Massachusetts. Airlines sue Mass over sick time law Case […]
EVERSOURCE SCREWS MASS CONSUMERS
With a little help from its friends, the “regulators” at the Department of Public Utilities It is perhaps understandable that one of the most important Massachusetts news stories of the year was buried in the avalanche of reports coming out of Washington last week. But Eversource Energy, a large investor-owned utility serving much […]
GENERAL ELECTRIC FAIL
Conglomerate’s woes throw Boston HQ deal contradictions into bold relief What a surprise. General Electric is tanking, and the scheme to bring the multinational’s headquarters to Boston is looking worse by the day. And whom shall the public blame if that once-secret deal cut by Gov. Charlie Baker and Mayor Marty Walsh in […]
THE VERTEX SHELL GAME
Pharma’s Donation to Boston, Other Cities Converts Public Funds to PR Gold Vertex Pharmaceuticals made a big PR splash last week with an announcement of a significant donation to Boston and other cities where it does business. The Boston-based company, best known for its cystic fibrosis meds, has pledged to “spend $500 million on […]
JUST ASK DIAPERS.COM
More reasons Boston should take a hard pass on Amazon There are myriad practical reasons why Boston should walk away from the Amazon headquarters sweepstakes: an out-of-control real estate and rental market, chronic transit and traffic problems, and an overheated tech sector, which is exacerbating inequality. But the most compelling reason is that Amazon […]
AMAZON OCTAGON
Mass pols stand ready to fight each other for the right to bribe a multinational At least 17 Massachusetts cities and towns are now preparing to do battle with each other—and hundreds more municipalities nationwide—for the dubious “honor” of “winning” the right to throw enough public money and tax breaks at Amazon to become […]
AN AMAZON NORTH ANDOVER DEAL?
Sketch of the Merrimack Valley Works plant at North Andover while under construction in 1955 Merrimack Valley pols courting the tech behemoth have forgotten recent history A couple of weeks ago, I criticized the possibility of an Amazon Boston deal—on the grounds that most of the jobs it would provide would be for […]
STOP THE AMAZON BOSTON DEAL
Locals have until Oct 19 to say ‘No Public Bribes to Corporate Scofflaws’ Fresh off of throwing tens of millions of dollars at General Electric, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker are now planning to enter the international horse race to convince Amazon to let the city and the commonwealth shovel […]
SUBSIDIZING GIANTS
Charlie Baker’s $4.1 million gift to the cable industry On July 12, the Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality, millions of Americans sent comments to the Federal Communications Commission urging that body to keep the internet open and fair. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration chose a different approach. It gave a gift […]
