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 […]
URBAN MISSION
The solution to UMass Boston’s woes could start with a city-run college There was an interesting conversation recently between two people who I often criticize for being… um… insufficiently public spirited. The Boston Globe’s Shirley Leung asked Boston mayor Marty Walsh a great question: “What if the city took over the University of […]
EDITORIAL: STRATEGIC RETREAT
DigBoston to move away from Facebook, help build democratic social media alternatives A decade back it seemed only natural for news publications like DigBoston to stake out turf on Facebook. After all, it provided an easy way for us to reach our audience on a regular basis—via a social media platform that was […]
YOUR MOVE, BOSTON
Only a massive protest movement can stop government giveaways to megacorps Boston politics—in both its state and local variants—seems to consist largely of backroom deals between government officials and major corporations punctuated by rituals of representative democracy that are increasingly put on just for show. Perhaps it has ever been thus. But that […]
“WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!”
Moral panic hamstrings promising North Andover cannabis farm deal Last fall, I wrote about the history of Osgood Landing—a large industrial facility in North Andover—as part of a column (“An Andover North Andover Deal?”) slamming a hasty bid to win the Amazon HQ2 contract put together by that town in partnership with nearby […]
DIGBOSTON JOINS MOVEMENT TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
News weekly feels the threat of cataclysmic war is grave enough to warrant direct action DigBoston—and this should be obvious, but it bears stating plainly—is against the US or any nation, organization, or individual having nuclear weapons. Because the longer anyone has them, the more likely it is that they will be used. […]
DON’T TAKE JOURNALISM LYING DOWN
If a DigBoston article inspires you, take action to right wrongs As each new year arrives, DigBoston staff—and journalists in general—like to offer some thoughts for the 12 months to come. These missives often take the shape of admonitions, wish lists, or resolutions, and the subjects covered can be literally anything that comes […]
ANNOUNCING THE DIGBOSTON ‘UNNAMING’ POLICY
Doing our part to shut down the ultra right As journalists, my DigBoston colleagues and I have a responsibility to do our best to cover news of the day fairly and accurately. And that’s based on our abiding belief in practising ethical journalism. Even though we’re street reporters for an alternative urban news weekly—a […]
SAFE SPACE SOCIALISM
Is identity politics running wild in Boston DSA? In 1979, I attended a meeting in Boston between the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM). Its purpose was to explore a possible merger between the two organizations. DSOC, which came from a split in the old Socialist Party, was […]
THAT ‘FREE SPEECH’ THING
Photo by Kori Feener Mayor Walsh and various police agencies were no friends of civil liberties at Boston’s monster protests against the ultra right Despite the “mission accomplished” happy talk in most of the news media, Saturday’s 40,000-strong Boston protests against extremism—and the tiny ultra-right rally that sparked them— were only wins […]
