How our nonprofit newsroom starts its listening by popping up where people live and play When summarizing my first two years of running a nonprofit journalism shop in Boston, I often use the spot-on aphorism that necessity is the mother of invention. That’s the best way to explain how, before we had real funding but […]
PRESS FAIL: AS GE CEO STEPS DOWN, BOSTON JOURNALISTS MUST DO THEIR JOB
June 14, 2017 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS A recent column by the Boston Globe‘s Shirley Leung perfectly encapsulates the problem with local media cheerleading for General Electric’s decision to move its headquarters to Boston. The title alone says it all: “Will GE’s new CEO remain committed to Boston?” Because, like so many pieces on the subject by […]
PLAY TO WIN: UK LABOUR PARTY LEADER SHOWS THE AMERICAN LEFT HOW TO MOVE BEYOND SYMBOLIC POLITICS
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 decades. Most especially about the […]
CABLE JEOPARDY
August 22, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS Now that broadband internet is a public utility, both cable companies and telephone companies need to pay for public access television — not try to defund it Last week, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ) was pleased to welcome the Alliance for Community Media (ACM) 2016 Annual Conference to […]
A WORSE FATE THAN GLOBAL WARMING
August 9, 2016 BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS The return of the nuclear arms race requires the revival of the disarmament movement “It is three minutes to midnight.” Young people reading those words probably won’t know what they mean. Folks who were adults when the Cold War ended with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union […]