Faraone the Media

24/07/2024

It's hard to imagine a better article to show the difference between what we do at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and what most commercial media does these days.

They rehash press releases, stand up for power, and ignore complicated stories. They often kill articles when they are told to, and rarely jeopardize access to athletes and celebrities.

We don't care about any of that stuff.

I don't think that Big Papi is evil, or bad, or even really anything more than your average businessperson looking for an easy check to add to his bank account. Am I surprised to see him capitalize on the clout that morons gave him after the Marathon Bombing? Of course not, he's basically a billboard.

And while I'm not yet sure if this will get picked up by no one or every major outlet, I can say that it is impossible to get people to pay attention to contract shenanigans that don't involve Hall of Fame sluggers, so this is a rare opportunity to get the public to actually care about the government spending everyone is always so worried about superficially.

Commonwealth seeks no-bid contract with David Ortiz-tied EV charger company

27/06/2024

Chris Faraone, a co-founder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, was blunt about his sometimes adversarial relationship with Beacon Hill dating back to his days as a writer for the now-shuttered Boston Phoenix.

"In all of my forays into your lawmaking affairs, I have found few fans of Fourth Estate forensics under the magical dome where no official needs to fear a FOIA," Faraone said. "Yet despite all that, I humbly sit here seeking pity, not like a reporter groveling for grant money, because we are past that, but more like a diabetic who needs insulin or else."

Lawmakers heard about upheaval in the journalism industry from reporters, editors and publishers Wednesday. Some legislators signaled plans to convene a reshaped state commission this fall that would produce a suite of recommendations by the end of the year.

26/06/2024

Tomorrow (Weds) at 10am I'll be on Beacon Hill to testify about the "formation of a Journalism Commission, the state of the journalism industry in the Commonwealth and other matters relating to the continued operation of independent journalism."

My prepared remarks are below. We have a solid group of reporters and independent publishers lined up to speak, plus others coming just to flank us, but the more the merrier. If you want to join in any way, details are at the link at the bottom.

It's too late to sign up to testify virtually, but you can still submit written testimony, and/or if you go in person they will have a new speaking list there. Doors at 9:30am, party starts at 10. You can also stream it, and I'll be posting video of my testimony as well ...

Good morning legislators, staffers, colleagues, and any of the few remaining journalists in Massachusetts watching along from the back booth of a coffee shop that is their newsroom.

My name is Chris Faraone, and I am the editor of Talking Joints Memo, a for-profit site that covers cannabis, and a co-founder of the Massachusetts Media Fund, a 501(c)3 where I have been an editor and organizer for nine years. Operating as the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, we collaborate and publish with plus advocate for outlets all across the state.

I take no pride in asking this body, or anybody in this building, for help. Going back to my days as a staff writer for the dearly departed Boston Phoenix, I’ve seen the cracks in your culture up close, even spelunked some dark corners myself—from hand-recording votes by the Governor’s Council, which still has no digital records, to identifying hundreds of pieces of art and ephemera that were pilfered from these halls over centuries. In all of my forays into your lawmaking affairs, I have found few fans of Fourth Estate forensics under the magical dome where no official needs to fear a FOIA.

Yet despite all that, I humbly sit here seeking pity—not like a reporter groveling for grant money, because we are past that, but more like a diabetic who needs insulin or else. And now that I have set the mood, regarding the proposal to seat a commission to assess the ravaged landscape and potentially propose solutions, I offer three points to consider:

First — Apprehend the extent of the wreckage. Take all the devastating closures that many will testify about today, and multiply them by the countless gifted people who have been pushed out of the profession. Then square that by the millions in municipal ad dollars that Gannett ghost papers are gorging on, and you still won’t find a number that encapsulates the agony and despair we face daily in these jobs.

Second — Please seat a limited number of academics. While their perspectives are important, a body guided by idea mongers without skin in the current market is unlikely to move at a speed faster than bureaucratic to deliver results. If billion-dollar institutions like Harvard University (Shorenstein Center, etc.) and College of Communication, Boston University care so much about saving the journalism ecosystem—from beloved bootstrap culture sites, to the Spanish-language press, to nonprofit shops like BINJ—then I respectfully ask, Where the hell have they been all these years?

Third — Whatever comes of this, please do not forget about the smaller independents and our dedicated readers, many of whom can’t afford to access paywall sites and deserve more substance than corporate radio and television coverage provides. Massachusetts doesn’t need a white paper to rationalize handouts for the haves; nor should the already privileged be further prioritized. Rather, the people of the commonwealth would benefit from an effort that recognizes the remaining Fremen wandering this barren news desert as crusaders worth saving, and not as specimens for studying.

So while I do not personally seek a seat on the journalism commission, and frankly have my hands full at the moment covering the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, I admonish you to seat some actual stakeholders who demonstrably take actions to advance media causes beyond just their own.

Chris Faraone

More info here: https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/4961

Old DigBoston (RIP) image by Scott Murry

03/04/2024

In one of our biggest Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism features of the year so far, Dan Atkinson sounded alarms about a so-called Stingray device that Mass State Police were looking to purchase in order to intercept cell phone information.

The article did well, got shared a bunch, and was published by some of our partners across the state, but it wasn't enough to stop the staties from making the purchase with federal anti-drug money.

Now that it's already in their hands, the question is whether state lawmakers will do anything to put rules in place around these cell-site simulators. Here's our followup ...

Massachusetts State Police purchased cell-phone surveillance tech that civil liberties watchdogs say invites concerning violations of constitutional protections. Is it too late for privacy advocates and lawmakers to put accountability measures in place?

Massachusetts State Police purchased cell-phone surveillance tech that civil liberties watchdogs say invites concerning violations of constitutional protections. Is it too late for privacy advocates and lawmakers to put accountability measures in place?

15/03/2024

Thanks again to Susan Zalkind for taking the time to speak with Talking Joints Memo about her new book, The Waltham Murders. This interview is currently the most popular article on our site with 1,300-plus reads already today, and Susan and her publisher were cool enough to share an excerpt with us too. I'll post that in the comments below.

Also, for those of you in the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism syndication network, I will have a shorter not-so-w33d focused version soon that will work well in outlets all across the region. We'll have it up on the Mass Wire soon.

For the rest of you, get the book. I can't recommend it enough.

An interview with Susan Clare Zalkind about her new book, The Waltham Murders: One Woman's Pursuit to Expose the Truth Behind a Murder and a National Tragedy

14/03/2024

For anybody looking for a version of yesterday's events that doesn't glorify the cops and prosecutors who have locked up several hundred thousand people in this state for a flower that grows in the ground ...

“Massachusetts will be the first state to take action since President Biden pardoned federal ma*****na convictions and called on governors to follow suit.”

29/02/2024

One of the biggest cannabis stories of 2024 so far is a media pseudo-event based on research that found “more frequent use … associated with higher odds of adverse cardiovascular outcomes.”

28/02/2024

Really sorry to hear about Richard Lewis passing. I got to interview him back in 2009. And when I say "interviewed," I mean I called him and he just talked for like 40 mins. Most of the time, you ask your subject a volley of questions, but not Richard Lewis. I just said "How's it going?" and off he went. Among the gems he dropped on me, Lewis said that Larry would have him come over to film Curb scenes during rush hour so he'd be properly pi**ed by the time he got to the set. Rest in sheesh.

"I've known Larry since I'm 12, and we have an argumentative love that in a moment's notice can make us very annoying toward one another. There's an episode called "The Baptism" that's one of my favorites, and he made me come to his office in LA during rush hour. It hadn't rained in years, and it was 105 degrees, and it took me three hours to go 13 miles. He was sitting there, and I said, "What's the scene," and he said, "You're angry with me because I stole your outgoing answering-machine message." Fortunately for me, I couldn't help but use my anxiety from driving over there — and him looking so calm, cool, and collected — so I did somehow wind up being really angry with him in that scene."

https://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/94412-Interview-Richard-Lewis/

27/02/2024

Today in the internet is falling apart in front of our eyes: On a tangent, I went looking for an article I wrote in 2012 about Scumbag Steve (Blake Boston), Charlie Schmidt, and many other memetic icons, thought that it was lost, found it, and

If you want to read a classic that involves Double-Rainbow Guy on stage at Middlesex Lounge with Chuck Testa and Antoine Dodson, check in the comments.

But for my new commentary about the word "mids," see the link below ...

Looking back on old times, it seems only three types of people didn't smoke mids in the ’90s: growers, rappers, and liars

07/02/2024

How Massachusetts State Police are using the opioid crisis to pursue “profound and dangerous erosions of privacy and civil liberties”

23/01/2024

After years of delays, the MBTA is finally about to roll out a new fare-collection apparatus. Will it only lead to more problems for the embattled agency?

09/01/2024

The good people at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism have done it again. Read it all.

30/11/2023

“Sole-source procurement is not working for the T, it’s costing a lot of money and problems beyond the Red Line.”

19/11/2023

“We don’t have a network of communication between the communities, so it’s very easy for people to slip through the cracks, which is not good for them.”

02/11/2023

On the night before a nonprescription drug ban, two WWF legends turned to w**d gifted from a fan to kick off one final party at a strip club

05/10/2023

The MBTA pays former T workers millions to fix longstanding problems, but transit advocates say inside hiring isn’t getting riders or the system where they need to go.

03/10/2023

25/08/2023

From the best cannabis rappers to songs about selling w**d, we celebrate the most high hip-hop

15/08/2023

BINJ Editorial Director Chris Faraone writes ...

We started the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism in 2015 to report stories that weren’t being told about people who were often ignored by big media.

That’s become the leading cliché offered by many who have started grassroots journalism operations in the years since, but we have always really meant it. One prime example of how those plans played out early on is our February 2016 feature on former Boston firefighter Allen Curry, whose story chokes me up to this day like few others—even before the incredible update that inspired this post.

We met Curry’s family during one of our first pop-up newsrooms (Nieman Lab even wrote about this story coming out of an early engagement experiment). The idea was to set up a makeshift headquarters in neighborhoods for a single day, often piggybacking on an event like a block party or family film night. When people approached our desks on the sidewalk, we asked them about what kinds of happenings warranted coverage. And the Curry family had one of the most jaw-dropping stories imaginable.

READ THE WHOLE UPDATE HERE ...

https://binjonline.com/2023/08/14/follow-up-allen-curry/

15/05/2023

The “review is focused on racial disparities in the rates at which people are stopped and frisked”

27/04/2023

“Do you smoke ma*****na? ‘The Fifth!’”

23/04/2023

50 students, a basement, a phone receiver, a piece of tinfoil, and a chewed wad of gum

17/04/2023

“It’s hard to believe that we’re here doing what we always wanted to do in the neighborhood we grew up in.”

16/04/2023

Inside former Boston Councilor Tito Jackson’s long-awaited multi-floor downtown dispensary

11/04/2023

A hotspot pot shop that will cover all the bases, right on Lansdowne underneath the Cask