news Archives

PROPOSED STATE JOURNALISM COMMISSION NEEDS BROADER MEMBERSHIP

IMAGE: Sandstorm State House collage by Jason Pramas (using public domain images) More working journalists, less elite institutes Chris Faraone,* John Loftus,** and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to rebuild American journalism. Pretty much from the ground up, since so many news outlets and jobs in

JASON PRAMAS March 20, 2019

SOMERVILLE COMMUNITY SUMMIT

Convening a city to improve its news media

JASON PRAMAS February 21, 2019

PUBLIC BAD. PRIVATE GOOD?

Boston Herald’s attack on MassHousing highlights double standard in American journalism

JASON PRAMAS February 6, 2019

WHY GATEHOUSE’S BOSTON ‘MEGACLUSTER’ IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

No corporation should own most newspapers in a region In last week’s Apparent Horizon, “GateHouse Editorial Flacks for Mass Retailers,” I dissected an editorial, “The benefits of a teen minimum wage,” calling for a subminimum wage for Bay State teenage workers that turned out to have run in over two

JASON PRAMAS January 23, 2019

A WINDOW INTO THE STATE HOUSE

Rep. Mike Connolly’s blog offers a critical look behind the curtain of Mass politics

JASON PRAMAS January 9, 2019

“Sunset Koksijde” by fdecomite is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

2019: WE HAVE 11 YEARS TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE

In last week’s column looking back at “2018: The Year in Global Warming,” I reviewed the dire threat posed to humanity and our environment by climate change, and concluded with the following: The big question for Bostonians and anyone else reading this: How do we go from this grim state

JASON PRAMAS December 26, 2018

CC0 Creative Commons Public Domain via pxhere.com.

2018: THE YEAR IN GLOBAL WARMING

“We are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it.” —Petteri Taalas, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization Given all the developments I could review from the year that’s now drawing to a close—and given that I primarily write

JASON PRAMAS December 19, 2018

Tufts students march against tiered housing policy. Photo by Amira Al-Subaey, Tufts class of 2019.

FAIR HOUSING WHACKED: TUFTS STUDENTS FIGHT ADMIN PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH “CLASSIST” DORM SYSTEM

More than 200 Tufts University students, faculty, and allies from surrounding communities held a march and demonstration last week to protest a new campus housing policy, according to the Boston Herald. Over the summer, the Tufts administration announced that its annual lottery system for on-campus housing during each academic

JASON PRAMAS December 5, 2018

Mayor Walsh announcing William Gross as new police commissioner from July 2018 via City of Boston

GROSS POINTS BLANK: BOSTON’S TOP COP SHOULD THINK TWICE BEFORE BASHING THE ACLU

BPD Commissioner William Gross has had a bad few days. Last week, ACLU Massachusetts sued the city of Boston for using “a system—nicknamed the ‘gang packet’—which awards points for choice of clothes and social media selfies, and [is] used to designate ‘gang affiliation’ without any accompanying allegations of criminal

JASON PRAMAS November 27, 2018

QUESTION 1: THE ROAD NOT TRAVELLED

A broader appeal could have resulted in a win for nurses and patients There was no way I was going to criticize Question 1, prosaically dubbed the Nurse-Patient Assignment Limits Initiative, in advance of Election Day. As a longtime labor advocate, I didn’t think it would be appropriate

JASON PRAMAS November 14, 2018