Join us for these free community events addressing news and journalism, then and now, in Cambridge and beyond
Over the past week, readers and community members from Cambridge and beyond have finally been able to visit our installation at the former Out of Town News kiosk in Harvard Square. Officially renamed the Cambridge KiOSK after a heroic decade-long restoration, the project is a partnership between the nonprofit CultureHouse and the Cambridge Office for Tourism, and we’re honored to be the first collaborator to make use of the amazing venue.
You can read more about our installation of iconic Cambridge publications (with the David Bieber Archives) here, and about the kiosk here, and we also recommend this article from Axios plus this great writeup in Cambridge Day by BINJ alum Madison Lucchesi. Beyond the windows and ephemera, though, BINJ is also organizing a month of free programs throughout June that pay homage to the former newsstand, celebrate Cambridge publishing and culture, and address the past, present, and future of journalism.
Please note that the Cambridge KiOSK is a liminal space that hundreds of people or more will visit for short amounts of time on any given day. Planning with that paradigm in mind, our speaking and interview programs will last for 15 to 20 minutes, with informal conversation to follow. BINJ will also be recording all of the events and posting the resulting media at binj.news. Keep checking this page for additional programs we are still in the process of adding, and we hope to see you soon in Harvard Square!
Wednesday, June 11 (5:30pm – 7pm)
The Importance Of Local News
w/ Author-Journalist Miranda S. Spivack and BINJ Editorial Director Chris Faraone
For this first program by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism at the Cambridge KiOSK, we are excited to welcome a longtime reporter who has worked at all levels of journalism to discuss the importance of local reporting today. In an interview with BINJ Ed Director Chris Faraone, Miranda S. Spivack will speak from her experience with outlets including the Hartford Courant and Portland Press Herald, as well as her new book about what some citizens do to fill the role of a Fourth Estate in media deserts. More on Spivack’s Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back (The New Press) below:
Most Americans are likely to encounter the effects of government malfeasance or neglect close to home—from their governors, mayors, town councils, school boards, police, and prosecutors. In fact, deals shrouded in darkness are regularly made at the state and local levels, often the result of closed-door discussions between governments and industry without any scrutiny whatsoever from the public. Too often, as this groundbreaking new work of investigative reporting reveals, residents are intentionally kept on the outside, struggling to get information about significant issues affecting their communities—from car crashes and dirty drinking water, to failing safety gear—until the backroom deals are done and it’s too late to challenge them.
A work of riveting narrative nonfiction based on years of original reporting, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards tells the story of five “accidental activists”—people from across the United States who started questioning why their local and state governments didn’t protect them from issues facing their communities and why there was a frightening lack of transparency surrounding the way these issues were resolved. The secret deals, lies, and corruption they uncover shake their faith in government but move them to action.
Thursday, June 12 (5:30pm – 7pm)
Sustaining Nonprofit Journalism In Cambridge
w/ Mary McGrath and Rick Harriman
Independent media continues to thrive in Cambridge, most recently through an exciting rebuild of the longrunning Cambridge Day into a nonprofit with a weekly print edition. A coalition of residents launched the nonpartisan newsroom to do in-depth journalism that will help residents make informed decisions to better their lives and hold local institutions accountable.
Research shows that while Cambridge is a hub of innovation and civic engagement, its 120,000 residents lack access to consistent reporting on local government, education, housing, community happenings, and issues. Hear from Cambridge News Inc. board members Mary McGrath and Rick Harriman about their plans to address this critical gap in local journalism moving forward.
Friday, June 13 (3pm – 6pm)
BINJ Reception At The KiOSK
Come and celebrate the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism installation at the Cambridge KiOSK and meet some of the journalists, archivists, designers, and others who curated the current exhibit and programming. It’s an open house, so join us at any time between 3pm and 6pm—we hope to see everyone from readers to sources and collaborators. Come hang out, talk journalism, and share ideas. Weather permitting, we will spread out to the benches next door as well.
Friday, June 20 (5:30pm – 7pm)
Spare Change News And The Legacy Of Street Media
w/ Marc Goldfinger
The nation’s oldest street paper, Spare Change News was founded in 1992 by James Shearer, Tim Harris, and Tim Hobson and backed by the Homeless Empowerment Project. The outlet has historically primarily been “by the homeless, for the homeless,” and includes everything from news to arts coverage and poetry in a print edition that is sold on corners throughout Greater Boston. As Shearer once explained, they started the paper “to change perceptions and to educate the public by giving ourselves a voice and building a bridge between the haves and have nots.”
Over the past several decades, Marc Goldfinger has been a Spare Change board member, poetry editor, and regular columnist. He is also one of the editors of Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and those Touched by Homelessness (2018). Join Marc as he recounts the struggles and successes that the nation’s oldest street newspaper has had covering homelessness and inequality in the shadow of America’s most elite university, and learn about the role that Spare Change still has in providing news and income for some of the region’s most vulnerable people.
Monday, June 23 (5:30pm – 7pm)
Cambridge And The Source Of Hip-Hop
w/ Pacey Foster, Ph.D. (UMass Boston, Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive at UMass Boston)
The importance of The Source magazine to the history of hip-hop culture (and journalism in particular) cannot be overstated. What started as a photocopied newsletter to promote a student hip-hop radio show on Harvard’s student run station WHRB (95.3 FM) would go on to help found the business of hip-hop journalism and at one point become the top selling music publication on American newsstands. Although the history of the magazine in New York has been well reported, its foundational years in Cambridge, when it was still a photocopied magazine being run out of the Harvard dorms by two white college students and their partners in the local rap group The Almighty RSO, remains an untold hip-hop origin story.
In 2024, the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive (MHHA) at UMass Boston took in a large collection of The Source and Street Beat radio show tapes that represent the largest publicly available collection of the magazine and its origin story. At this event, Cambridge KiOSK visitors will learn about the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive in celebrating this important collection, and about the source of The Source with Prof. Pacey Foster, The Hiphop Archive & Research Institute at Harvard University, and other community partners.
Pacey Foster is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston and founder of the MHHA at the Archives and Special Collections at the Healey Library at UMass Boston. As a creative industries scholar, his research focuses on social networks in creative industries, the social dynamics of creative clusters and scenes, and the growing community archive movement. Since its launch in 2016, the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive has become one of the largest regional hip-hop archives in the world and has partnered with a diverse network of institutional and community partners to host world class events and exhibitions that collect and celebrate the local history of hip-hop arts and culture in Massachusetts.
Wednesday, June 25 (5:30pm – 7pm)
BINJ Garbage Rail Kids Meetup For MBTA Riders And Artists
Join BINJ editors and some of the creators of the first batch of Garbage Rail Kids that dropped last year for an evening of complaining about late trains and doing something about it. In writing and designing our second set, we hope to work with more artists and journalists to boil down big problems and ideas related to the MBTA into compelling trading cards. Come with ideas, or just to support the process and to talk about mass transit. More background info here.
Friday, June 27 (5:30pm – 7pm)
Between The Lines: A History Of Alternative Media And Culture In Cambridge
w/ David Bieber of the David Bieber Archives and BINJ Editorial Director Chris Faraone
Almost every newspaper, magazine, and piece of ephemera on display for the BINJ installation in Harvard Square comes from David Bieber, whose Norwood-based archive represents 50-plus years of collecting and preserving the popular culture, music, and media of the 20th and 21st centuries. David has acquired more than one million artifacts, building a collection ranging from vintage vinyl to antique radios, movie memorabilia to original Andy Warhol art, posters to press kits, baseball cards to bottle caps, always believing that the transitory creations of today are the treasures of the future.
Following business studies at Miami University and public relations at Kent State, David received a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University. While in college, he reported for Billboard magazine, and his ensuing Boston music and media career spans four decades, including positions as creative services director at the groundbreaking WBCN-FM for 16 years and director of special projects at the Boston Phoenix/WFNX-FM for 19 years.
In an interview with BINJ Ed Director Chris Faraone and ensuing open discussion, we will tap his knowledge of iconic counterculture around Cambridge specifically. Join David and others who helped curate the BINJ installation and hear about legendary outlets including Old Mole and other SDS papers published in Cambridge, and as well as the alternative newspaper wars involving the Cambridge Phoenix, The Real Paper, and Boston After Dark that inspired the 1977 movie Between the Lines.
Sunday, June 29 (2pm – 3:30pm)
Covering Cambridge
w/ Cambridge Day Editor Marc Levy and BINJ Editorial Director Chris Faraone
Marc Levy is a veteran journalist and the founder of Cambridge Day, a hyperlocal news outlet serving Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts. He launched the publication in 2009 after a career in traditional print journalism, including a role as executive editor of a group of daily and weekly newspapers in Central Connecticut.
For more than 16 years, Levy has been the sole full-time staff member at Cambridge Day, taking on the roles of writer, editor, proofreader, and publisher. His dedication kept the publication running during a time when many local news outlets were shutting down. His work at the Day focuses on in-depth reporting on local government, education, housing, and community issues.
There have been some major changes at the Day in the past two years, including the launch of a weekly print edition in 2023 and relaunching as a nonprofit. But in this session, we’re talking about covering the news, from City Hall to the environment to theaters and restaurants.
