A conversation about town and city watchdogs, government transparency, and “Backroom Deals in Our Backyards”
On June 11, 2025, BINJ hosted Miranda S. Spivack in its first public program at the Cambridge Kiosk in Harvard Square. The journalist and author’s new book, “Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back,” fueled a fitting program for the launch of a media engagement project.
Spivack is a longtime reporter who has worked at all levels of journalism, including experience with the Hartford Courant and Portland Press Herald. She sat with BINJ development consultant and contributor Linda Pinkow to discuss the importance of journalism and scrutiny of town and city halls, as well as FOIA, Massachusetts subjects in her book, and how some citizens have filled the role of a Fourth Estate in media deserts. More on Spivack’s book 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.
