Plans for the Newton Beacon, a new on-line only local non-partisan newspaper was announced earlier in the year. Today they announced that the site will have a soft launch in mid-January with Gail Spector and Dan Atkinson as the reporters. For the initial launch they will focus solely on covering the upcoming tax override vote. The plan is then to roll out the full launch with comprehensive Newton news coverage some time in the spring.
This is good news indeed. Since the demise of the Newton Tab last year, It looks like we may go from near zero local news to having two new on-line news sites. In recent months the all volunteer Fig City News has been a great addition to the city and I have high hopes that the Newton Beacon will be as well.
Here is today’s Newton Beacon’s announcement …
Local news has been in steep decline nationwide over the last decade, a result of massive changes in the advertising and news industries, leading to severe consolidation and cost-cutting. Newton has not been spared, and now our city is the largest in the state without a local, professional newspaper.
This has left Newton residents without a trusted, neutral source of information about education, public safety, government spending, and countless other important matters. For a community such as ours, eager to remain engaged and informed, this is nothing short of a crisis. So, we are excited to announce today our response: the Newton Beacon, a local, nonprofit news outlet staffed by paid professional journalists focused like a laser on our city.
The Newton Beacon is officially launching in mid-January. Initially, the Beacon will have a limited scope, providing special coverage of Mayor Fuller’s three proposed overrides. Pending the success of a soon-to-be-launched fundraising campaign, we expect to begin full news coverage with a permanent reporting staff shortly after the conclusion of the override vote in the spring.
The March 14 override votes are among of the most pressing issues that have faced our city in the last decade and they hold enormous implications for life in our city. It is essential that all residents and business owners have access to professional, independent journalism to help them stay informed.
To ensure that we are delivering dependable, high-quality news directly to you, the Newton Beacon has hired two professional journalists on an interim basis who have extensive experience reporting on issues in Newton and beyond to provide in-depth override coverage.
- Gail Spector served as editor of the Newton TAB from 2006 to 2012. Prior to her work with the TAB, she covered Newton as a reporter for the Boston Globe. She most recently taught beat reporting at Boston University, directing her students’ coverage of Newton for the Boston Globe. She is also the author of the book “Legendary Locals of Newton.”
- Gail will be joined by Dan Atkinson, who reported for the Newton TAB from 2005 to 2006 and 2008 to 2010. He has since covered Boston City Hall for the Boston Herald and written numerous investigative pieces for DigBoston, and currently teaches journalism at Lasell University and advises the undergraduate newspaper.
Between January and mid-March, you can expect regular coverage of the override, which will include coverage of events, interviews with key stakeholders, and analysis of arguments both for and against the proposal. This coverage can be found by visiting www.newtonbeacon.org. (A new and improved website will be coming soon, but the URL will remain the same.) News articles will also be e-mailed to anyone on the Beacon distribution list. If you have not signed up yet, please visit our website to sign up today.
The Newton Beacon
Board of Directors: Burton Glass, Aaron Goldman, Matt Hills, Joe Hunter, Rhanna Kidwell, Anne Larner, Alan Schlesinger
“non-partisan” ?
To back up this claim and for transparency you should list the mangement names and financial backers
I think this is a fair ask
I’m voting No on the tax increase . People on fixed incomes are already being hurt by the record high and .. If the town had money to re-design the city seal for the sole purpose of virtue signaling, they don’t need to impose a tax joke .. People who disagree, are urged to write out a voluntary check to the town today .
4 out 7 directors have more than casual affiliation with Real Estate development. Is this relevant information that should be disclosed?
https://www.sab-law.com/attorneysstaff/alan-j-schlesinger/ – alan Schlesinger – real estate lawyer
https://www.northlandnewtondevelopment.com/endorsements – Anne Larner, Joe Hunter – endorser for northland, no other info so far
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhanna-kidwell-aa94a027 – partner at Real Estate deveoper – Cypress Development
@Bugek – the post above did list their board of directors, and the two reporters that will be working during this initial phase. I’m not sure who else you mean when you say “list the management names”.
Calling attention to the fact that Alan Schlesinger is a real estate attorney and that Rhana Kidwell is a partner at Cypress Development seems fair enough.
Calling out Anne Larner and Joe Hunter for being in favor of the Northland Project is a bit strange. The city held a referendum vote on that project. Calling out the newspaper’s ability to be non-partisan because any of the board members were either for or against that project just seems silly to me. Non-partisan doesn’t mean you don’t have a personal opinion, it means you don’t let your personal opinion color the news paper’s news coverage.
I hope the Beacon will include a comments section with each article. Just calling yourself non-partisian doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Admitted I’m jaded given that during the Northland debates, where “non-partisan” lost much of its meaning, but I’ll stop there… and await the first article on the Override to come out with the hope that it’s not a free press release for the Mayor.
If they are smart, all non real estate articles will be totally fair and balanced to build credibility and good will. If the suspicion that this paper is heavily funded by real estate developers… I expect development articles will be very biased
We’ll see. Hopefully I’m wrong
Interesting that the focus of initial reporting will be “special coverage” of the override vote.
Based on the board membership I thought it would be the village center zoning changes.
Will the Newton Beacon simply be another part of the mayor’s media campaign to get the override passed?
As Bugek said “We’ll see. Hopefully I’m wrong.”
I’ve worked with Gail Spector and Dan Atkinson before and anyone who thinks anyone can influence their editorial integrity or independence doesn’t know them.
I feel better about the Newton Beacon now that Gail Spector and Dan Atkinson are involved. Both professional journalists with unquestionable integrity.
But launching a news product of “limited scope” early, in order to provide “special coverage” of the overrides, indicates to me that the Beacon’s Board of Directors probably has a political agenda. I’m not surprised, but I am concerned that it might impact the level of resources and attention dedicated to different stories in the future. Even with trustworthy journalists involved, a Board of Directors has the ability to manipulate coverage. So I’m still skeptical about this venture.
Mike: In what way do you think they will manipulate coverage? Be specific.
very easy, If they want to manipulate ppl towards development:
– on front page, add article about how past zoning was Racist and new zoning will correct past sins
– on front page, find victims of past zoning with tear jerking sob stories
– on front page, quote liberal scientists and scholars who say density will solve the climate crisis
– on front page, interview children and students who are scared of their futures due to climate change
– place any fact-based stories written by journalists on Page 3
– place on front page, mention the low million dollars developers will donate the Newton (not mentioning that their profits will be in the HUNDREDS of millions over many years in perpetuity) . And not mentioning the cost Newton will bear from the increased population
easy right? journalist integrity have not been compromised
@Greg–
The Beacon’s Board could for example, rush a “special” edition of the newsletter out early in order to support the override[s]. Not suggesting Gail and Dan would be in on anything nefarious. I know they have too much integrity for that. But the Board has clearly determined that the overrides have a better chance of passing with the Beacon publishing than without it. [Point of fact: I personally support all three overrides].
Well I suppose if they publish articles about zoning on a site about the tax OVERRIDES then your paranoia will have been justified.
Good to have more local coverage . For me personally I would like to see less zoning articles and more about people, music, sports, politics. Zoning has some interest to people but to me it gets done to death in these local papers. I don’t know… Maybe I ask for too much.
Wherever a few or more current or former seasoned Journalists piece together a ‘newspaper’ (daily or weekly) that can perform their duties exceptionally to hold elective public servants as well as the people in positions of power and authority accountable, then all that is a win-win situation for a largely skeptical citizenry.
The loss of dozens of community daily newspapers — decades-old and some that published/printed for over a century — is the sad commentary of the 21st-century Digital Age. Hedge-fund corporate elites who buy newspapers without any previous experience or education in Media, nor the necessary knowledge of any respective community’s various issues, are the new arbiters of shuttering the free flow of information and thereby trotting out its warped ‘view’ of news stories lacking any merit to print. They buy because they can! Yet that sleaze-and-greed mindset damages democratic values.
Long live the First Amendment and the individuals whose ethical search for the truth and ceaseless digging for the facts will surely restore public confidence in reporting and publishing the public’s need to know and our right to know.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Doubling back to this thread because I’ve done a little thinking about Newton Beacon and what’s really bugging me about this nascent online newspaper. I’ll get right to the point. It’s the presence of Matt Hills on the paper’s Board of Directors.
I don’t know Matt personally. The only conversation I can ever recall having with him was telephonic, and dates back many years. I’m sure he’s a decent human being. I know he’s spent a great deal of time in Newton politics.
But the fact remains that Matt Hills is the only Newton elected official I can ever recall being cited by the Attorney General for violating the state’s Open Meeting Law, a law specifically designed to keep citizens informed of actions taken by their government. If memory serves me correctly, Hills was cited for violating this law on multiple occasions.
Based on the violations I referred to above, in my opinion, Matt Hills is not an appropriate person to sit on the Board of a news organization. Again, no personal offense is intended. I just don’t believe that someone who as an elected official hid information from the public, is the right person to direct a newspaper. To my mind, it makes Newton Beacon less credible.
I do know Mr. Hills personally. He is precisely the type of person to be sitting on this board. The city of Newton would be far better off with more of Mr. Hills in positions of authority and not less. If he ran afoul of the Open Meeting Law, well, that says more about that rule than it does about Mr. Hills.
Fig City News has positively defied my expectations. It is hard for me to imagine the Beacon holding a light (pardon the pun!). That being said, I applaud all effort to disseminate local news. There is no such thing as too much news coverage. Give the Beacon a chance. If you disagree with the staff or coverage, do not read it.