Time for journalists and readers to fight back against the destruction of American newspapers Over the holiday weekend, my wife and I had occasion to take the commuter rail out to Dedham to a family gathering in memory of loved ones who have left us. As we walked the mile to my cousin’s […]
NONPROFIT MODEL NOT A PANACEA FOR AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA
Would-be reformers need to keep that in mind A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about a bill (S. 80) filed with the Mass legislature by Rep. Lori Ehrlich (D – Marblehead) and Sen. Brendan Crighton (D – Lynn) that aims to start a volunteer commission to assess the state of local […]
PROPOSED STATE JOURNALISM COMMISSION NEEDS BROADER MEMBERSHIP
More working journalists, less elite institutes Chris Faraone,* John Loftus,** and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to rebuild American journalism. Pretty much from the ground up, since so many news outlets and jobs in the field have been destroyed in the last quarter century. And a growing number of […]
PUBLIC BAD. PRIVATE GOOD? BOSTON HERALD’S ATTACK ON MASSHOUSING HIGHLIGHTS DOUBLE STANDARD IN AMERICAN JOURNALISM
Over the last several days, the Boston Herald has had its knives out in no less than three articles and two editorials against MassHousing—an independent, quasi-public agency created in 1966 and charged with providing financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts. Readers can be forgiven for assuming that such lavish attention from a publication […]
WHY GATEHOUSE’S BOSTON ‘MEGACLUSTER’ IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
No corporation should own most newspapers in a region In last week’s Apparent Horizon, “GateHouse Editorial Flacks for Mass Retailers,” I dissected an editorial, “The benefits of a teen minimum wage,” calling for a subminimum wage for Bay State teenage workers that turned out to have run in over two dozen eastern Mass […]
ONE OF THE MOST IDIOTIC VOICEMAIL MESSAGES WE’VE EVER HEARD
It’s painful to imagine the absolute horror faced by these people, clientele and management alike, still we must do our best if there is to be any sense of sanity restored to the downtown area.
