4 Comments

1. 

   BOB BURKE on June 3, 2019 at 2:05 pm

   I was just about to post this Globe article about Judge Rutberg and the Berkshire Eagle, but saw that Greg beat me to the punch. It’s appropriate that Greg was first past the gate on this one because as I was reading the article, I thought back fondly to all that he, Gail and Andy Levin did to keep the TAB vibrant and relevant when their corporate overlords were doing their best to milk the life and spirit out of Newton’s only citywide paper.

   I lack the resources, stamina, business acumen or brainpower to be a direct part of what Judge Rutberg pulled off in Berkshire County, but I would like to do whatever I could to support this kind of effort for Newton and I suspect there are a lot of other civic activists who would also be eager to help.

   I have some issue differences with Greg, but, I also know he is passionate about having a strong, citywide newspaper that reflects all sides of any controversy and I also know he shares my view that the absence of such a citywide forum tends to harden positions on both sides. I don’t think he would have posted this piece about the Judge and the Berkshire Eagle if he didn’t feel this deeply from personal experience and conviction. We need it. let’s do it.

2. 

   Sallee Lipshutz on June 3, 2019 at 3:43 pm

   What Bob said…Ditto…Me, too (no hashtag). Ideas?

3. 

   Patrick Butera on June 3, 2019 at 7:02 pm

   Definitely a glaring gap that’s impacting the overall amount of discourse on city issues, the challenge appears to be in the financial sustainability of local reporting – social media has basically done what Amazon and eCommerce did to traditional brick and mortar retail. So if the traditional model isn’t going to support the use case for local reporting what alternatives can we look at?

   One thought is how the BBC (Britain’s public service broadcaster) handles their funding – in the UK everyone has to pay a yearly TV license fee just under $200 if they have a device capable of picking up the BBC. That license fee is the main source of funding for BBC content and, importantly, allows them to operate commercial. All BBC channels (TV and radio) operate commercial free in the UK and have zero accountability to advertisers (think of what happened to the TAB after GateHouse Media bought them out). They’re not beholden to corporate interests precisely because their funding comes directly from the public.

   We obviously don’t need anything close to the scale of the BBC – think something like v14 but with formal reporters supplying content. I’m also thinking any sort of mandatory fee would be about as popular as Northland and Riverside in their current incarnation but it would be interesting to see what the feasibility would be around some form of crowd funding for a local reporting service. The Globe article is a bit light on detail on revenue, I’d be curious whether the Berkshire Eagle is being run at break even or just over so they can maintain their services.

   Perhaps something more like a non-profit model where the goal is charge enough to maintain the service rather than maximizing profit, since it seems like the latter isn’t really working if the TAB is any indication.

4. 

   Greg Reibman on June 4, 2019 at 10:12 pm

   @Bob: Thanks for your comment. I helped start and devote so much time here because I believe deeply in having a platform where good people can debate and discuss all things Newton.

   That wouldn’t work — and be worth anyone’s time — if everyone agreed with me — and each other — all the time.

   As I’ve also said many times, this volunteer-run blog is not a replacement for a news site overseen by paid, professional journalists, something we need desperately.