The Washington Post has a famous slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Well, for a number of years now things in Newton have been pretty dark and I believe it’s true, our Democracy is in some ways dying. Years ago, when Greg Reibman and Gail Spector published and edited the Tab, we had a paper that while by no means perfect put a critical eye to our City government. Many of their views were provocative, yet at the same time our citizens were much better informed, and there were vibrant discussions about key issues…our finances, our Mayors, the building of the new NNHS, etc.
These days, it seems much harder, almost impossible for a normal citizen to follow the goings on of our City government and local news. The Tab plays a far lesser role. The Boston Globe has some coverage and a weekly newsletter, there’s local access TV on cable, there are groups on Facebook, but it’s all over the place and hard to follow. Personally, I’m very engaged in the return to in person learning discussion involving our School Administration, School Committee, and NTA. If you couldn’t catch the School Committee on cable, how do you find out what happened on the morning after a meeting? Where do you look? It’s incredibly difficult.
Village 14 plays a huge role in informing our citizens of key happenings in Newton, but it’s a blog, not a newspaper. Given the interest levels of our citizens, the talent in our community, the size and resources we have…it certainly seems that Newton should be able to somehow do better. In the new year we’ll have a special election for open City Council seats and a regular election including for our Mayor. How do we make informed choices without more information? How do we stay up to date with major happenings? How do we evaluate our government’s performance? And how do we learn about all the wonderful programs and activities that Newton offered before Covid, and will offer again once Covid passes (and it will!)? Other communities like Wellesley have found approaches to news and other reporting. Smaller communities like Martha’s Vineyard publish a magnificent weekly paper that covers news and community events with outstanding depth and writing. Why can’t Newton do this? What would you suggest?
The couple who publish The Swellesley Report (Wellesley residents Deborah and Bob Brown) devote many hours per week to the paper. Take a look. It is really well done: https://theswellesleyreport.com/
As a result, they have good circulation and can demand reasonable advertising rates. Quoting:
“We get about 2,000 active users per day. The Swellesley Report’s social media presence of 13,000-plus followers continues to grow with 6,200 Facebook followers; 3,300 on Instagram; and 3,600 on Twitter.
We also have more than 1,700 daily email subscribers, about half of which open the newsletter each day.
About 60% of our readers are women between the ages of 25 and 55. They are college educated and have a median household income of $148,000.”
There’s nothing to keep a similar product from being produced in Newton . . . if someone is willing to take a leap and devote the time and effort. But is is a big commitment. I don’t think you can raise enough in ad revenue to pay for a crew of reporters and production people.
Paul, if that was the direction Newton took, do you think that the reporters and production team would all need to be paid (or receive a stipend but not an employee salary)? I can envision many scenarios where a retiree, a journalism student, or a committed Newton resident might volunteer to cover a committee, or a topic like arts and entertainment. Could a cadre of Newton residents be cobbled together not unlike V14, but along with blogging also be amateur reporters? Just an idea, at least as a start. After all we have so little now!
Newspapers made their money on classified ads. Craig’s list along with the Internet killed that highly lucrative revenue source. Remember that the newspaper was the place at one time to look for a job – the Sunday jobs listing was 1/2 lb of paper.
That’s what funded the journalistic side of the paper. Relying on commercial ads alone puts the the papers at risk of commercial pressure.
I don’t know the answer, but it’s likely to be the non profit model in the long run. Which has its own issues of big donor influence.
Newton is a community filled with smart, well spoken folks. One would think crowd sourcing of unbiased news, opinion and discussion would be possible.
Facebook Groups by nature are biased. Each are created for a reason or special interest. And for someone new to Newton, Village14 would seem to be the place for all things Newton. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be true.
Because the content on Village14 is carefully curated to push a specific point of view; a preferred ideology. Those who walk the same lines are afforded broad publishing/posting access. Those who do not, gets the dreaded “Guest Post” tag on the byline; the red flag for, “not one of us”; and proposed content scrutinized, scrubbed if not rejected, albeit politely. Censorship with a smile is still censorship.
Friends have often referred to V14 as an, “echo chamber”. One has even called it a, “cess pool” where people are viciously attacked if their view opposes the masses. So why do I often comment here?
Because there is not “one Newton”, but a community that DO have diverse points of view, varying political ideology, even if their opinions are muted in fear of fierce rebuttal. Or perhaps I’m just a glutton for punishment. :-)
That said, so long as the Internet remains a primary source of content, I hold out hope that one day, Village14 can be THE place where crowd sourced news, opinion and discussion, that represents ALL of Newton.
@Matt it has always been true that newspapers have an editorial bias that impacts what they cover and how they cover it. V14 is not covering new ground here.
A few points to consider:
1. Craigslist and co. have been around for 20-25 years. We’ve known for quite some time that newspapers can’t compete unless they have a sugar daddy if you will. Hence the papers doing the best relatively speaking are the Boston Globe, NYT and Washington Post that are more multimedia organizations than traditional newspaper. If anything, these big organizations are sucking talent away from smaller, less well-off newspapers. But it’s not a new problem.
2. Also, corporate chains have been horrible stewards of local news – hence the sorry state of the Tab and other local papers around here. That actually seems to be more of a problem in big metro areas than in smaller towns. I know Rhode Island in particular have many great local papers.
3. For at least five years or so, we’ve been so consumed by the shenanigans going on in Washington that it’s difficult for anything else to get traction.
4. The siloing effect of modern media, living patterns, working patterns, algorithms, etc. mean that we stand to live, work and associate with people who largely tend to share our world view and opinions. Our online information sources we gravitate to reflect these biases. Thus, it is often surprising and dismaying when we come across viewpoints and opinions that don’t align with our own. Hence the rise of conspiracy theories, even among those who know better.
5. Newspapers were (and are) biased, but they at least have to make it look like they’re unbiased. But bias is in the eye of the beholder. If we like an opinion or article we come across, it’s obviously the right thing to do. If we don’t, the sky is falling.
6. V14, as great as it is, isn’t really a news source. Commenters here are almost without exception are quite intelligent, dedicated and devoted to what’s best for Newton. But, like letters to the editor and comment boards, comments one way or the other don’t reflect the larger populace. Kind of like of Massachusetts is out of touch with the rest of America. Of course, no one wants to admit this.
7. There are no silver bullets, but I think Dan Kennedy, formerly of the Boston Phoenix and now of Northeastern University, probably has the most plausible ideas of how we can move forward.
Newton is now at PEAK special… we can no longer pave or plow our streets, we can’t fix or build anything, and ONLY here could we not figure out how to open our schools.
Despite this we are somehow one of the few communities in MA that have access to a special program to test kids/teachers in schools (the ones we couldn’t open). I wonder how we got chosen??
I definitely want some news source, I actually think V14 usually does a great job of that, but I am getting more and more fearful about we will learn on the subject of what we have become…
This is a topic that breaks my heart. Government officials who are not held accountable behave differently from those who are. Check out this 2018 study by the Brookings Institute that showed that lack of local news coverage has a direct effect on city finances.
A group of Newton journalists and former elected officials mounted an effort a couple of years ago to address this problem. A nonprofit news site seemed like our best bet but without a person who was willing to donate a full-time effort to raising funds and launching it, we couldn’t come up with a way to get it done.
Thank you to Paul Levy for his kind comments on The Swellesley Report. Indeed, running a publication like ours is a challenging business, but worthwhile. We started it 15 years ago as a community service and have morphed it into a small business over the years. If my wife and I both did it full time (I still have a 9-5 job, so work in Swellesley around the edges) it would be way better, but we like to think we’re still providing value. There are hundreds of publications like ours across the country now, many started by ex-newspaper and ex-magazine reporters/editors like myself (see the Lion Publishers trade group: https://www.lionpublishers.com/), and as someone noted, the nonprofit model is one increasingly popular approach, especially in underserved communities. I haven’t seen too many locally that have cobbled together content from a coalition of reporters (Holliston Reporter does this), but maybe that could work in Newton.
As an occasional blogger on this site and more frequent commentator on others’ pieces, I assure you that no one has ever edited my political views here. The two comments I have received from Village 14 organizers, both coming at the beginning of my tenure here, were to limit the length of my pieces and to avoid the purely personal: there must be a local, Newton angle there.
When I hear this talk about “the Left” and its intolerance of other views, my eyes glaze over. America has no true “left” in the European sense, i.e. a broad base of fervent supporters of unions, social democracy, governmental support from cradle to grave, and so forth. We have instead time-to-time coalitions of interest groups that occasionally turn on each other in the battle for scraps. No one should buy into the Fox News storyline of the nefarious deeds of “the Left.” I wish that our country really did have a consolidated left to counter the powerful conservative forces funded by the Koch brothers and the like.
As for local politics, those who write for Village 14 often disagree about current controversies, from high-density housing to zoning reform, from police supervision to the Charter Commission. If there is a conspiracy on this site to silence dissenters from some perceived “party line,” I haven’t seen it. This talk reminds me of Trump’s baseless allegation that a conspiracy stole his victory in the presidential election. Where’s the beef?
I very much agree that the absence of any consistent, reasonably unbiased news on current Newton happenings is a major issue. The Newton Public Schools and COVID-19 and Newton City Hall and rezoning are two prime examples of major issues with limited, unbiased reporting that have roused anger, fear and concern among the city’s residents. The absence of news can actually pit people against one another.
If Newton is to prosper and be a vibrant community with engaged, active citizens who coalesce on solutions rather than fight over who is evil and who is on the side of the angels, the city needs a consistent source of factual local news and at least occasional analysis. Based on my research, the best way of accomplishing that in the current news environment is to develop a local, non-profit digital news system with a diversified array of revenue streams (donations, grants, sponsorships, events, etc). There are a number of these across the country that have been able to not only survive, but to also grow within the last 15 years or so. It takes a group of Newton citizens committed to making it happen – and some financial backing. Charlottesville Tomorrow (Charlottesville, VA) is one such digital news source that started with a few people getting together to try to address the lack of local news and its negative impact on business development. Another example is the New Haven Independent which was started by Paul Bass – previously a traditional journalist who revolted against the big news chain takeover of local newspapers and the death of real local news. His almost single-handed development of what is now a pretty robust news source shows a different path to success via one determined individual with lots of news experience. The Charlottesville folks stared out with no news experience among the initial small group.
It can be done. The right people with time, enegy and determination need to come together. There is even a national support group. the Institute for Non-Profit News, that fosters local efforts – and some of the big national foundations have sponsored many grant programs to help new non-profit news projects develop, and grow.
I’d like to welcome Michael Slater as our newest regular contributor.
Thanks for this post. You’ve raised some important issues that have been gnawing away at the city for some time.
The issue Gail raised is the hardest nut to crack. How do we hold our officials accountable if the public is largely in the dark about the details of what’s going on?
I’d like to take a swing at an easier issue. How about recruiting a series of subject matter contributors. I’m thinking back a few years ago we had Kara Robbins. She worked for the Newton Cultural Alliance and she contributed regular posts about upcoming events in Newton.
Thinking about a standard newspaper, a whole series of topics come to mind.
If there are any readers out there that think they’d like to contribute regularly on any of these topics send me an email ([email protected])
* Newton business
* Newton sports
* Newton arts
* Newton cartoons
* Restaurants/food/recipes
* Puzzles
A few years back Andreae Downs posted regularly posted “Newton Muni-Wonk” on Village14 – covering upcoming city government meetings and goings on. Similarly, Amy Sangiolo’s compilations of the week’s city meetings have appeared here intermittently. Would any one like to volunteer to contribute a weekly whats-happening-this-week-in-city-government post? (email [email protected])
A bit trickier …. there are some general recurring city topics of interest – city finances, schools, planning/zoning, others? Is there anyone who would like to contribute regular factual/news’y posts on any of these topics. What I’m thinking of for these are not bloggy-my-opinion-on-xxx posts but here’s-whats-happening posts.
Finally, are there any folks who’d like to just become regular contributors, offering their personal opinions,thoughts, and comments on a wide range of Newton topics.
If you might consider being a regular contributor on anything mentioned above, send me an email at [email protected] and let me know what specific role you may be interested in.
To be clear, I’m just shooting from the hip here and there is no new Village14 plan. I’ll see what comes in from all of you, compile it all, and talk to the rest of the Village14 crew. Maybe something new or some new voices can come out of it – no promises at the moment.
Thanks again Michael for stirring this pot and welcome as our newest Village14 contributor
@Matt Lai – You repeatedly push the line that “Village14 is carefully curated to push a specific point of view”. I think you may not understand how the site works.
Here are the basics. Since Village14 was started, people have regularly been invited to become contributors. When someone becomes a contributor they have the technical ability and permission to post whatever they like, any time they like, on whatever topic they like, with zero editorial oversight. At the moment there are 30+ people who have that ability.
Of those 30+ people, some of them have effectively dropped out, many of them only very occasionally contribute, and a small number of those 30 are responsible for the vast majority of posts. Over time, specific peoples contributions wax and wane.
When people are invited to become contributors there are no editorial instructions or guidance given to them about specific topics or issues. As Bob Jampol pointed out the only instructions the contributors get are to stick to Newton topics, and a few minimal guidelines about style and presentation (length, etc).
In the past, invitations have generally been extended to folks who have been regular commenters for a while on Village14, that seem to have interests in multiple topics, and that don’t regularly push against any of the V14 guidelines.
Now I know your main focus has been the very large Northland project in Upper Falls. You have quite rightly point out that overall, through out the entire unfolding of the Northland project, Village14 posts tended to tilt in a decidedly pro-Northland direction. Where you are mistaken is where you chalk that up to “editorial curation” or “censorship”.
Of the 30+ people who have the ability to post any time, on any topic, I’d say there’s a fair spread of opinion on development issues. The majority of those 30 people became contributors without anyone knowing what their opinion was on development issues or Northland specifically.
During the time that Northland was unfolding, the majority of posts on Village14 related to Northland were done by just a few contributors that were mostly on the same side on that particular issue. Note that there was no editorial oversight involved. Those few of the 30+ folks were self-motivated to post columns on the topic.
In the midst of the Northland project, you and others were very vocal that Village14 was very one-sided on the issue. You definitely had a valid point. The cause of that one-sided’ness was not an editorial board but a function of who happened to be posting on that issue at that time. In response to your valid concerns we did two things – we repeatedly reached out to various people in Rightsize Newton to contribute posts on the topic and repeatedly got re-buffed with “no way, Village14 is too slanted”. We also started an effort to regularly feature Guest Posts to bring in individual voices on individual topics without giving the keys to Village14 to an unknown entity in perpetuity.
I thought Guest Posts were a good addition to the site. You seem to think they are a nefarious effort at editorial censorship. The only censoring of Guest Posts are if they are not generally suitable for the site ( I regularly turn down clear commercial posts and non-Newton posts) and that they comply with the general rules of the site (no anonymous posts, etc). Beyond that, the only editorial tweaking is that I sometimes add or change the title on the post – most often to make a very long title shorter.
I agree. Both the Globe and the Tab are no longer reputable newspapers, and this has lead to zero accountability at Newton City Hall. The Globe just prints press releases and over-the-top editorials. Reporting is a quaint thing off the past.
Certainly the news business is tough these days. But not impossible. Here are a few examples of local independent online publications:
– Watertown News [https://www.watertownmanews.com/]
– Provincetown Independent [https://provincetownindependent.org/]
– Charlotte (VT) News [https://www.charlottenewsvt.org/]
I appreciate most of the Village 14 overseers, the 30+ people that Jerry referred to who possess the “keys” to this site. But I do think a large percentage of those well intentioned key holders lack any sense of how to deal with the emergence of V-14 as the primary news source for Newton.
I understand that this site does not claim to be a “news source,” but that is what it has become, both as a result of its popularity and the lack of other available sources. Village 14 is not just a news source in the traditional sense, its a value-added site that includes hundreds of opinions to help readers reach their own conclusions about local topics of interest.
For all its positive attributes though, Village 14 should acknowledge that time and circumstance have evolved its core mission. The site needs to adjust…
The first suggestion I would make is to eliminate first-name only users and pseudonyms, a change that in my opinion is long overdue. I do not understand why this site allows people to hide behind fake and nondescript names. Making people take responsibility for their own words is much more likely to result in the civil discourse that the site’s overseers want to encourage.
The second suggestion I would make, is for the site to stop censoring posts that are critical of public officials and candidates for political office. Even when a post may seem unfair, public officials should be fair game for public criticism. Removing posts makes it appear that Village 14 is taking sides rather than serving as a platform for varying opinions.
Worth noting… Gail and Jerry have both commented about the importance of holding elected officials accountable. But just last week, Gail removed a post she felt was unfair to an elected official. A few months ago, Jerry removed a post of mine in which I suggested that a then unnamed US government official might reach the same just end as Mussolini. The worst bit of censorship though came when a former City Councilor had a comment removed for it’s tone, which was highly critical of a current Councilor’s position on affordable housing.
Political censorship is a slippery slope. If Village 14 is to be viewed as an unbiased presenter of local news and public opinion, it should stop engaging in censorship.
The post that Gail removed was an ugly comment about the sex life of City Councilor. That post should have been removed and the commenter should have been banned. Being a public official doesn’t make every aspect of your life fair game.
“The majority of those 30 people became contributors without anyone knowing what their opinion was on development issues or Northland specifically.”
Oh, I beg to differ.
If one were to ignore the comments and simply focus posts, one could very well argue that this site skews to one side, with a small percentage of guest posts.
But as the OP noted, “(V14) is a blog, not a newspaper.” Apparently we can either control our impulses to not pick a side, and therefore unable to produce an unbiased, reliable, crowd-sourced local news medium.
@Mike Striar – Thanks for the suggestions. We’ll be kicking around ideas in the coming weeks and your suggestions will be included as part of that.
To be clear. The pulled comments you mention were not pulled because they were “critical of public officials”. Everybody is welcome to be as critical as they like about our public officials and their actions.
Judgement calls will always have to be made and no doubt people’s opinions will differ on those judgements. In one case someone was casting innuendo about a public official’s sex life and in the other calling (no doubt somewhat facetiously) for causing grave bodily harm to an elected officials. You may not agree with either of those decisions but neither indicate that Village14 won’t allow comments critical of public officials.
I agree with Mike Striar about the value of requiring people to use their real names. We would lose some posters, and we’d lose some of that “cesspool” charm – oh wait, that would be a good thing!
I also agree with not sharing information about anyone’s sex life on here however, elected official or not. I’m told 99% of the rest of the internet can provide that!
To paraphrase Jon Stewart when he hosted The Daily Show, if *this* is where you get news, then maybe you ought to find another source. Yes, this site can be a source of news and information. But, no, it does not have to assume the costs, responsibilities, legal headaches and ethical or other requirements of a standards-based news organization as part of its “evolution.”
Commenters may find that input from experts and knowledgeable neighbors isn’t enough. And a hybrid ‘crowdsource’ model is sure to bring howls of bias, whether that’s based on location, issues, party politics or any other interests and motives. Serving the community means a lot of things — the work that goes in behind the scenes here shouldn’t be considered a given.
Thanks for all you do, moderators.
I want to echo David Wallace’s comments from just above, and also thank him for what he wrote. Newton as a city runs on volunteers supported by professional staff. Other than the Mayor, our elected officials are essentially volunteers (I’m aware of options for healthcare, some stipends). When they run for office they open themselves up for critique, but even those we most vehemently disagree with (for me, the School Committee) are putting in vast hours for minimal/no compensation. We hope they exercise good judgement, but that’s where elections come in!
V14 is volunteer-based too. I think the people who contribute here are interested people who care. Participants/posters may or may not be well informed, but through crowd sourcing (and because there’s little else) the “correct” picture begins to emerge. Calm, dedicated, level headed people like Jerry Reilly put in lots of time to make this work. They do the best they can. I do think that V14 can evolve and attempt more. I’ve asked to help with that and look forward to the process. Further up in this chain Jerry invited people to volunteer where they can. I echo that. Criticism is easy. Process improvement is harder, but I think we’ll worth it if our community ends up more knowledgeable and better informed.
Many people abruptly stopped reading Village14 because of the bias of its leadership. I still follow it each day because I value the issues discussed here. If V14 truly desires to regain a broad cross section of readers, its leaders must cease to use this site as a vehicle to push a specific political agenda whether national, state or municipal.
It has become a site which pushes the agenda of a mayor and city council who do not value traditional democratic principles. They rule Newton as their own fiefdom. V14 must offer more to the residents if it truly wants a vibrant cross section of readership. No contributor to this site ought to feel intimidated and bullied by their opposition to the status quo.
To Colleen, I think going way back in time there’s some truth to what you wrote. I experienced that as well. However, I came back because of my interest in the issues, and the opportunity to voice my views. More recently I think things have improved. V14 isn’t perfect. It’s easy to say things online, whether or not you identify yourself by name as we have, that you wouldn’t say in person. I think though that passion is ok. There’s a tradition in this country going back to our founders of issuing pamphlets and newspapers that got people worked up. I’d urge anyone reading this to give V14 the benefit of the doubt. We’re all neighbors. If we remember that an awful lot of good can come from this forum. Michael
Michael, a lot of good could come from this site. Nothing I have read this morning from Jerry suggests that V14 would be a more tolerant site.
Just imagine what might happen if someone wrote a piece about Trump which suggested he accomplished much as president.Another issue would be city taxes, fees and how our revenues are spent. The schools and how the administration could improve our outdated school policies. I could add much more. People would love to feel free to express their views; but refuse to do so because the strong political correct element in our city would vilify anyone who challenges the way things are done here.
Colleen,
I don’t think its a reflection of this site, rather a reflection of the liberal intolerance in Newton.
Before Trump, I had always assumed the violence and intolerance came from the far right. The last 4 years has opened my eyes and both far left and right are as bad as each other.
Yearning for the middle.. not going to find it in Newton
Jerry,
Perhaps the solution to the perceived bias is an experiment to post 2 perspectives for every ‘opinion piece ‘
Ie if someone wants to write a pro-development article then someone else must post an opposing view article at the same time. Ie your pool of writers must have at least 10% with opposing views to make this happen
And keep a quota balance on fact based posts and opinion pieces. A regular weekly segment would attract viewers. Eg
2 opposing view posts “weekly” in response to the mayors letter . That would be fun
@Colleen Minaker – We should make a clear distinction here between how people respond and what they say in comments vs Village14 not wanting to post certain viewpoints in the posts.
For years now we constantly hear complaints about how Village14 won’t publish certain viewpoints. During that same time nobody ever submits posts with those viewpoints. The problem is not that Village14 is censoring the posts. I think the problem is primarily that people with those viewpoints don’t want to deal with the often unpleasant responses in the comments section so they don’t submit them. If you’d like to write something that makes the case that the city is not responsibly taxing and spending, we’d be happy to publish it. If you do, there will inevitably be all sorts of strong opinions elicited in the comments in response. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself. It only goes off the rails when/if the opposing comments begin violating the site guidelines – getting personal, etc
I’d remind you all though that those loud and often unpleasant comments also come in response to nearly all politically charged posts – regardless of what viewpoint is expressed. I’m thinking of all sorts of unpleasant comments hurled over the years at Greg Reibman, Sean Roche, Paul Levy in response to things they’ve written. For better or worse that’s just part of what happens when you take a public position on a controversial issue on a forum like a blog.
As for a post on President Trump’s accomplishments – no that wouldn’t be welcome here since it’s not Newton related, but yes it would no doubt evoke howls of protest if we did run it ;-)
.
@Bugek – Unfortunately, your plan is unworkable unless people are willing to write articles with opposing viewpoints.
Here’s a general challenge. I know from the comments that there are plenty of folks on this site who are not happy with the pace or details of how new development has/is being done in the city. Write up a post, express your views. Tell us what you think that the city is doing wrong and what you think they should do to correct or change that. Send it to me at [email protected] and I’ll run it. Coleen if you’d like to write something on City taxes and spending, I’d be happy to run that too.
Jerry,
If you don’t have any people with post privileges to post opposing views then this should be a red flag to the blog that it needs to more inclusive
It becomes an echo chamber and its currently showing. Unless you are on the far left, it’s hard to argue this is healthy
I think V14 has improved a lot in its echo chamber-ness more recently. I partially credit Gail’s activity – for a long time this blog felt like a boys club with most posts being from Chuck, Greg, and Sean. It’s nice to have a woman’s voice, especially with her credentials. I also think Jerry is able to see things with more nuance than some of the other male posters, so I like his posts. And of course, Bob Burke’s stories add a lot. But it was getting tedious when it was The Chuck, Greg, and Sean Show when it was all development all the time, with some bike thrown in for good measure.
Thanks Jerry for your point of view about posting on V14.
I am not inclined to write an argument for or against a controversial issue.
However, if a topic was initiated by V14 which has been done in the past, people could respond accordingly.
Zoning reform would be a good topic. I have not viewed much on
about this of late.
@Bugek – I’m all ears. If you or anyone has any suggestions for someone willing to post an opposing view on the development issue or any other issue please send it. … or if you have suggestions for someone who would be interested in being a regular contributor on a range of issues from various opposing points of views on issues please let us know.
One thing I would disagree with you on is you chalking it up to a “far left” perspective. From where I’m sitting the problem is not primarily a left/right issue. There are a variety of local issues where its pretty ambiguous about what the “left” or “right” position would be. Development is a good example – historically, it would definitely be more a “right” position to support development and a “left” position to be concerned with the effects. My sense is that you may just be chalking up whatever position on a local issue that you disagree with as “far left” by definition.
I rarely comment here, but as someone deeply involved with online media, this post interests me.
As some of you may know, I worked with Greg and Gail years ago at the TAB as Web Operations Manager at GateHouse Media. The TAB was one of many websites I was responsible for maintaining and Greg and Co. were hard-working dedicated journalists who understood their craft.
It appeared to me a large part of the decline of the Wicked Local network was top management who were entrenched in the past and were oppositional not innovative and helpful.
I remember a Harvard educated publisher telling me years ago the internet was a fad and would be gone in five years and our job was to fill those boxes chained to telephone polls.
With few exceptions there was no interest in understanding search engines or embracing digital back then. The Web and Craigslist were blasphemy – the enemy. All too common response to new ideas and new technologies not understood by those comfortable with the status quo – a la 1948.
Therefore, I have a hard time feeling sorry for the senior management who seemed to only care about their yearly bonus as opposed to the folks in the trenches like Greg and Gail, et al, doing the work, who needed support.
In any event, I have deep respect for what Greg and the volunteers at V14 have done over the past years building and maintaining this project after they left the TAB.
Since stats were mentioned above, here are some interesting ones concerning V14:
Over the last 24 hours V14 had 2,785 Unique Visitors and a maximum of 320 uniques per hour.
For the month of November V14 had 56,757 Page Views, 10,532 Users, 30,025 Sessions. 54% of visitors were female and the largest age demographic was 45 – 54.
Since V14 began, there have been over 6,000 posts and about 90,000 comments published.
Should there be more opposing opinions expressed – absolutely. To that end I would encourage those with different opinions to express them – and those with entrenched views to be more excepting.
Regardless as to your opinion as to the leaning of the content and the diversity of opinions expressed, Village 14 is a noteworthy accomplishment and a benefit to the City of Newton.
Thanks Jon for those stats. They amaze me.
@Colleen,
Just because there’s another side does not mean it has equal merit, or any merit at all (see “bothsidesism”). To many in our community, normalizing Trump falls into the latter category. It’s always a judgement call. And yes, any publication or blog is going to have some bias. It’s about striking a balance.
@Jon, while the Gatehouse publishers strategy to stick their heads in the ground and ignore the Internet was foolish, they were right to panic about the business model. Online publishing was clearly the future, but so too was the disappearing revenue. We’ve got a lot of world-class smarts in Newton. Hopefully someone can figure this one out. If the answer is to make local journalism a volunteer activity, I’m afraid we’ve lost.
@Jerry– I respect your opinion that censored posts were not removed because they were critical of public officials. But each one of those disputed posts was in fact directing criticism at public officials. While you may attribute a different rationale to the removal of the posts, I don’t see it that way. I agree with other commenters about some of the inherent bias amongst V-14 overseers. Part of that bias seems to be an almost instinctive desire among some of those overseers to protect public officials.
For example, I’ve had comments about [and with] public officials removed previously. Those are the only type of comments I’ve ever had removed. I had an entire conversation with a City Councilor about the constitutionality of traffic cameras removed after the dialogue got a little testy in both directions.
My point being, it is inconsistent for you and other V-14 overseers to advocate holding public officials accountable, while at the same time providing them protection from public criticism. It is only this category of criticism [directed at public officials and public policies] that I am defending, and suggesting should almost never be removed from the site. I understand that Village 14 is not bound by the First Amendment. But I would encourage you and other “key holders” of Village 14 to recognize that the concept of freedom of speech, particularly political speech, is the most essential tool for holding public officials accountable.
@Mike Striar – I appreciate your point and it is indeed a slippery slope without any clear boundaries . I’ll keep your words in mind when any future comment kerfuffles break out.
In return I’d ask all commenters to be as vociferous and vocal as they like when criticizing public officials but please leave any innuendo about their sex lives or calls to violence out of the comments. Neither are necessary or helpful in making a case on any given issue.
@Adam – please, no. No national politics for Village14 and my apologies if I inadvertently stoked that fire.
Honestly, this is a great question, albeit does not have a good answer.
I first discovered Village14 in September 2017. I was very pissed off at White Supremacists (threatening Jews and other minorities) Donald Trump considered “very fine people” after Charlottesville and was determined to fight back at the ballot box. There was a local primary and mayoral race coming up, yet I knew absolutely nothing about any of the candidates or what they stood for. Fortunately, I discovered there were very few Trumpsters on the Ballot, and those that who were weeded out in the primary (often polling in a distant 4th or 5th place). The two leading candidates were Progressives with similar ideologies and policy proposals. Even though I had a slight preference for one over the other, I would be perfectly fine with either one in office.
Village14 was also helpful for researching candidates in the 2019 election and the more recent MA-04 congressional race to fill Joe Kennedy’s seat. I could also see the 9 candidate primary field becoming a cluster**** without ranked choice voting, with Jake Auchincloss likely winning with 3-4 Progressives splitting the vote (I was personally torn between Becky Grossman and Jesse Mermell, though Jake Auchincloss may have been #3 or #4 on a Ranked Choice ballot).
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That being said, while Village14 has good for researching local political candidates, it has somewhat dropped the ball about what Newton is doing about COVID-19. While all the news conferences focused on what Charlie Baker is doing statewide or Marty Walsh is doing in Boston, there is absolutely no info on what Newton is doing citywide. I recall signing up for Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s email back in March (when playground/track and field restrictions and mask mandates still varied greatly from city to city), but even that hasn’t always been helpful. For example, when Newton recently “joined Marty” in rolling back to Phase 2, there was no announcement here or no news from Newton about whether/when gyms were closing, etc until the middle of the week. Then last week Ruthanne Fuller’s email implied that Newton would now be following Charlie Baker’s revised “Phase 3, Part 0” 25% capacity restrictions, creating even more confusion about whether gyms, etc would be allowed to open (or not). Finally (and as a more recent post has pointed out), Newton only has 1 dedicated COVID-19 drive through testing site (at Riverside station), and it still costs $80 out of pocket to go there.
Perhaps instead on focusing on scandals around local Republicans who caught COVID-19 at Donald Trump’s holiday party, the city could be doing more to advise residents on what they can do about COVID-19, advertise what resources are available, and inform what restrictions are in place we need to be aware of. Perhaps there is even confusion, misinformation and disorganization at the city council level, with different people having different idea on what needs to be done with recommendations changing daily or even hourly at times. While we don’t necessarily need to know *everything* being considered (especially far fetched, highly implausible outcomes), when decisions are made we do need to be informed in a more timely and proactive manner.
Some inspiration from today’s Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/28/business/how-two-nontraditional-newsrooms-vermont-are-winning-readers/
Dave Brigham: Beat me to it! Enjoyed reading that story earlier this morning.
It’s interesting to think on the different business models newspapers have used. The traditional one, of course, was to derive revenue from circulation and advertising. Newspapers like the TAB came up with a different way: By mailing copies directly to households — instead of relying on newsstand sales and “voluntary” subscriptions — you make money off advertising by promising advertisers above-average market penetration.
VTDigger and Seven Days (as described in the story) have essentially taken the traditional business model and turned it on its head — getting companies, foundations, etc., to invest in journalism as a public need/resource. Remains to be seen how widely that model can be extrapolated, but good to see people coming up with innovative solutions instead of shutting down.
Thank you for posting this story about the Vermont papers. I hadn’t seen this. I’m just the newest member of the V14 “team”, but these ideas for funding have lots of merit and clearly should be discussed further.
Michael