The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism has reported on the darkest least transparent corners of the opioid crisis in Mass since our inception. That coverage has morphed over a decade, and since 2024 has largely taken the form of exposing how municipalities are spending remediation funds meant to address the continuing hard-drug crisis.
With the number of annual opioid-related deaths in the commonwealth still nearing a thousand last year despite a notable downward trend, one might think the lack of spending in this area would make a giant splash. One of our scoops even involved a company that cut a settlement check to the state then subsequently making more in Mass healthcare contracts than it had paid in penalties. That firm has not done business with the commonwealth in the time since.
But outside of the local independent print and online publications that echoed our investigations, only one journalist at a major outlet has paid any real attention to the killer pill remediation situation—Mike Beaudet. Running his own parallel investigation for several years, the WCVB 5 reporter also exposed a troubling lack of spending, and recently returned with a team of young journalists from Northeastern University’s School of Journalism to dig more. Among their findings is that money is being granted to cops in questionable ways, a trend we also spotted.
We have been pleased these past few days to see not just fresh coverage of the opioid remediation funding saga, but also by the reaction to revelations therein. The responses have rung in on at least three fronts:
- The legislative. Beaudet’s new features are largely anchored in the outrage of a single state senator. If we didn’t know any better, we’d accuse these journalists of cherrypicking. However, we email all our coverage to multiple lawmakers, and have asked several house members and senators about these problems. Sadly, few are willing to speak on the record about the funding discrepancies.
- Social media. Like the title of this post says—the more media about these funds and how they are (not) being spent, the better. Unfortunately, we have been unable to promote much content featuring the word “opioids,” due to being flagged by platforms for promoting drug use by posting these articles.
- BINJ readers. For all of the above reasons and others, it can be difficult to find an audience for opioid remediation coverage beyond our mailing lists. We appreciate the notes some of you sent alerting us to Beaudet’s work, but assure you that we welcome his company on this beat, and encourage you to share the WCVB pieces widely along with everything BINJ produces on the subject.
Check out all of WCVB’s reporting on opioid remediation spending here, and visit the BINJ archives on the topic here. Learn more about how to help us continue this coverage here.
