Somerville Wire

Brought to you by SMF

EDITORIAL: SOMERVILLE NEWS MEDIA THEN AND NOW

Transcript & Journal website front page on March 29 2023. Screenshot by Jason Pramas for the Somerville Wire.

[T]hat is what I want Somerville readers to understand. My Somerville Media Fund and Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism board, staff, and volunteer colleagues have been joining me in warning that our city is well on the way to becoming a news desert since early 2019.

SOMERVILLIANS DONATE $5,000 TO RESTART SOMERVILLE WIRE

Municipal news service can run for another few months, now accepting applications for a reporter gig Great news! Thanks to the 40 Somerville residents who donated the $5,000 we needed, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism has met our goal to restart publication of the Somerville Wire news service for another few months. This is […]

IF SOMERVILLIANS DONATE ANOTHER $2,420, WE CAN RESTART SOMERVILLE WIRE

An impressive $2,580 in public support came in this week. We can hire a new quarter-time reporter when we get to $5,000. In nonprofit fundraising, one is always looking for signs of public financial support. Because that’s an important way that charities like our Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism determine whether we’re providing useful services […]

EDITORIAL: SOMERVILLE WIRE ON HIATUS UNTIL SPRING

BINJ Needs $15,000 to Pay a Quarter-Time Staff Reporter for a Year It has been almost four years since the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism held a well-attended community forum in the big room at (the sadly shuttered) ONCE club on Highland Ave. that led to the launch of our Somerville News Garden project. The […]

EDITORIAL: DONATE TO THE SOMERVILLE MEDIA FUND!

Somerville Media Fund banner

A holiday appeal to help support professional journalism from local nonprofits Somerville Media Center and Somerville Wire (Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism) It’s tough to have a democracy without professional news outlets producing the carefully curated information people need to be engaged residents of their communities week in and week out. With major news corporations […]

EDITORIAL: SOMERVILLE MEDIA FUND GIVES FIRST TWO GRANTS

Somerville Media Fund banner

Somerville Media Center and Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism get equal shares of donations raised from community members I’m pleased to report that about 20 Somervillians became the first donors to the new Somerville Media Fund this spring. Generously giving $2,330.02 to help the Fund’s initial two member news organizations—Somerville Media Center and Boston Institute […]

EDITORIAL: NOW EVEN LESS NEWS IN SOMERVILLE

DigBoston box among the boxes of defunct newspapers in Union Square, Somerville. Photo by Jason Pramas. Copyright 2022 Jason Pramas.

DigBoston goes digital-only, yet another reason to donate to the Somerville Media Fund (Somerville Wire) – It’s rare that a journalist writes an editorial about an editorial, but careful readers may note that the principals of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism—Chris Faraone, John Loftus, and me—also run the commercial metro weekly newspaper DigBoston. A […]

DONATE TO THE SOMERVILLE MEDIA FUND!

Somerville Media Fund banner

Somerville Media Center and BINJ join forces to create municipal foundation to support nonprofit community journalism There can be no democracy at any level without strong journalism produced in the public interest. Yet here in Somerville, as in communities across the nation, we are on the verge of losing our professional local news outlets. In […]