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 Continue Reading
Vertex Headquarters. Photo ©2015 Derek Kouyoumjian Pharma’s Donation to Boston, Other Cities Converts Public Funds to PR Gold October 24, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Vertex Pharmaceuticals made a big PR splash last week with an announcement of a significant donation to Boston and other cities where it does Continue Reading
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) demonstration with Joseph J. Ettor speaking from platform to striking barbers in Union Square, New York. (1913) You don’t need a union to take action for justice on the job July 18, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Last week 1,200 Tufts Medical Center nurses unionized with Continue Reading
Original flag image by Adbusters. Or Betsy Ross, depending on who you ask March 7, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government. Yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and related federal agencies often rely on local police to help round up undocumented immigrants Continue Reading
NYC (1970) February 22, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS You know we live in interesting times when general strikes get discussed matter-of-factly in an American big city newspaper. A subject which would have only been raised in a publication like the Boston Globe in recent decades to attack it. But Continue Reading
January 10, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS The opioid crisis is dire enough without adding insult to injury. With almost 12,000 deaths from overdoses in Massachusetts since the year 2000—increasing sharply in recent years with fentanyl-laced heroin hitting the streets—the human cost to users, their families, and our communities is Continue Reading
An oral history of Haley House AS TOLD TO THE BOSTON INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT JOURNALISM If hungry people had to count on seasonal compassion, the poor would likely starve but for the holidays. The government only assists so much; in Boston, for example, it’s been two years since the closing of Continue Reading
September 29, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Last week—as is the case many weeks every fall and spring in Boston—notices of small scripted protests by an array of area progressive nonprofits, unions, and student groups got me thinking about the rut the anti-corporate American left has been stuck in for Continue Reading
February 29, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS In May 2012, three former GE executives were imprisoned after being convicted on multiple charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and defraud the United States. Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm had all worked for GE Capital—the financial division that operated Continue Reading
Image by Kent Buckley February 15, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Returning to our ongoing look at General Electric’s recent and inconvenient history of violating the public trust, in part 2 of this “missing manual” the corporation got out of the subprime housing loan market just in time to avoid Continue Reading
