I am pleased to announce that the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism turned 11 years old this week! On June 30, 2015, Chris Faraone, John Loftus, and I met at a now-long-shuttered Cambridge bar and agreed to found BINJ.
We had no nonprofit organization, no staff, no board, and no money at the outset. Chris and John were working for DigBoston. That very day, I had just lost my job as an assistant professor at Lesley University for helping lead the successful drive to unionize the core faculty there. When Chris and John asked if I would join the staff of the new organization, I said “I happen to have a hole in my social calendar.”
From such humble beginnings, BINJ has achieved a great deal: Publishing thousands of articles covering key issues of the day in Boston and Massachusetts in the public interest, syndicating an many of those articles for free to over 20 independent news outlets around the Commonwealth, helping train hundreds of young journalists in our intern program, educating hundreds more students and working adults in the basics of journalism, organizing dozens of journalism-related events of all sizes, passing a bill in support of local and regional journalism in the Mass. legislature and working on a new bill to be filed next year, raising about $1.5 million dollars to fund that important work to date, and much much more.
Thanks very much to the thousands of supporters who have kept BINJ going year after year, through good times and (sometimes very) bad times. Further thanks to the hundreds of reporters and interns that have made BINJ the best news outlet we can be. And big thanks to my colleagues Chris Faraone, John Loftus, and, of course, Linda Pinkow for being awesome through thick and thin. Here’s to continuing to produce news in the public interest—as difficult as that is to do! And hope that everyone has a great holiday!
Jason Pramas is the executive director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
