YEAR OF THE BINJ
A Near-Exhaustive Look at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism thus far
To Everybody in the BINJ Community, in Boston and Beyond:
It’s been almost an entire year since I spent money that I didn’t have to catch a conference held by The Media Consortium (TMC) and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) in San Francisco. In California, I had heard, there were far more examples than we have on the East Coast of inventive nonprofits doing their part to lift ethical journalism. At this summit in particular, there were visiting media stalwarts from around the country representing new and old models alike, and I picked their brains for two days during workshops and over beers in the evening.
In the months following my Bay Area pilgrimage, I sketched out what I thought a newfangled reportorial incubator around my way should look like, and along with John Loftus came up with the name Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, or BINJ (pronounced “BINGE”) for short. A number of industry experts gave us helpful advice, and in short time we assembled an initial game plan and began spreading the word. Loud mouth and devout advocate for independent journalism I am, I shouted from every rhetorical rooftop I could sneak onto, and made the local radio and TV rounds to spread the word. In the process, I left behind a trail of media polemics, and looking back I’m proud to say that we have stuck to the prescribed course that I outlined back in June:
To facilitate the change we want to see in local media, BINJ contracts with reporters of all types to produce features that are relevant to one or more of five general editorial departments: Investigative, Tech & Innovation, Arts, Engagement Narratives, and Intercultural. We operate with rigor, and drill hard on difficult issues, while structurally BINJ relies on a vast network of independent media makers (of various skill levels and interests), and distributes through a matrix of deeply-rooted commonwealth press institutions — from ethnic outlets and scrappy outer-borough weeklies to hyper-local blogs and podcasts.
Furthermore, I noted that BINJ will yield projects that step back to glimpse the big picture, and promised to facilitate content-sharing between outlets, and to thoroughly report on issues that are not adequately represented elsewhere. Resources are scant in the alternative and community press, but our hope is to help scramble and diversify a Hub media landscape that’s been increasingly dominated by a few elite entities.
Anyone who’s interested in the difference between BINJ and seemingly comparable university-based outfits is encouraged to read the battle cry I wrote last month (some of which has been reappropriated for this report), in which I noted the importance of cultivating freelance talent and of propping existing community news infrastructure. For now though, I’ll let the rundown of our first six months (and the links) do the talking. We’ve accomplished quite a bit in such a short time, and there’s no end to the thanks and praise I owe the core BINJ crew, our freelancers and contractors, and all of our collaborating outlets and readers. What’s most important to realize, however, is that all this energy and talent was already here — as it is in many cities — waiting to be put in motion, looking for paychecks that adequately compensate their creativity and hard work. All we’re doing is boosting their many voices, and with help from you and others, we’ll be able to amplify them even louder in the new year and beyond.
Sincerely,
Chris Faraone, BINJ Co-Founder & Editorial Director
MISSION: BINJ
The Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism produces bold reporting on issues related to social justice, and cultivates writers and multimedia producers to assist in that role. BINJ supports independent publications in various reportorial and organizational capacities, collaborates with partners on sustainable journalism and civic engagement initiatives, and aims to empower promising muckrakers with training and professional compensation.
“Working with BINJ has been an incredible experience. As a freelancer, I’m use to working with outlets, including major national publications, that provide little or no support. BINJ is different. They’re doing more with the limited resources they have than journalism outlets with twice the staff and four times the funding. I can’t wait to see what they do going forward.” -Josh Eaton, BINJ Freelancer (Writing, Research)
FEATURES
So far we generated seven features (and already have about that many more commissioned for the new year) — on topics ranging from the environment and natural gas, to surveillance and government contracts, to public records laws and police militarization — that ran in three publications, involved more than a dozen contributors, were shared several thousand times on social media and, per conservative estimates, have already reached in excess of 100,000 readers between print and online.
Dedham and Goliath
The war against Big Energy is raging on the southern edge of Boston
Spectra Energy, a multibillion dollar natural gas company, aims to construct a pipeline through West Roxbury, on the southern edge of Boston, and in the Town of Dedham to the south, traversing a major thoroughfare and residential neighborhoods, and abutting an active query. Residents fought back with a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that was ultimately dismissed, but that hasn’t stopped them from rallying against the apparent injustice in growing numbers. Though it’s not especially significant that this was our debut feature, “Dedham and Goliath” is representative of our mission to tell stories that are not getting significant shine in other outlets. We are happy to say that in the months since, major media outlets have ramped up their coverage of the pipeline protests.
- Published in DigBoston and on BINJ Medium page.
- Our work on this topic is the subject of an upcoming article in major journalism publication.
- On the strength of this feature, BINJ gained exposure in communities on the immediate southern fringe of Boston, and also spurred valuable new sources to approach us for follow-up coverage.
Excerpt: With FERC and Spectra apparently operating in sync, it seems that health and safety — of workers, of everyone in areas through which their operations traffic — have been compromised on the federal agency’s watch. The company does not have a clean record when it comes to environmental impact or equipment malfunctions. In Maine, for example, a pipeline owned by Spectra malfunctioned in the Penobscot Bay area on New Year’s Eve two years ago. According to local news sources, the accident resulted in “an emergency shutdown valve blowing open,” and in “a plume of gas 100 feet into the air.”
License to Connive
Boston still tracks vehicles, lies about it, and leaves sensitive resident data exposed online
Boston was one of the first cities to deploy automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, though the Boston Police Department claimed they stopped using such devices three years ago. Our reporter not only found that BPD is still using ALPR via cooperating agencies, but that much of the sensitive data the department collected for years — in excess of 1 million hits including plate numbers, location, vehicle make and model, and in certain cases even the home addresses of drivers — were left exposed on an unsecure server run by an outside contractor. Anyone with the right Google search could find this trove of sensitive data, which law enforcement alleges it uses for security purposes.
- Published in DigBoston and on BINJ Medium page.
- Our investigative work on this front was recognized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and was presented by the EFF to California Governor Jerry Brown along with other research that compelled him to pass some of the most thorough privacy protections in America.
- The feature prompted more sources to approach us with further information about abuses in state surveillance and security, all of which will be taken into account in our continued work on the subject.
Excerpt: It’s not clear whether or how the public is any safer when authorities use massive watchlists. In Boston, a city of approximately 600,000 people, parking enforcement has one hotlist with 720,000 hits, each of which notes a plate number, location info, and available make and model data. Among the targets listed in August: 19 license numbers classified as “immediate threats,” nearly 4,000 affiliated with “wanted persons,” 25 plates linked to bad checks, 75 tied to payment defaults, and 468,617 flagged for cancelled insurance.
Turf War
The saga of gentrification in Somerville is playing out in the city’s youth sports leagues
The City of Somerville is changing. Just north of Boston, once commonly referred to as “Slummerville,” the 80,000-person hipster hamlet has become a hotspot for young professionals and students, while the rents are predictably rising with the influx of new residents. Naturally, the tension between old and new Somerville is being felt across social and political lines, including in the city’s youth sports culture, where exclusive and expensive new leagues have threatened incumbent programs. An ongoing point of hostility between community members for years, this is the first time the topic has been given significant attention by a regional outlet.
- Published in DigBoston and on BINJ Medium page.
- This was the first of many coming BINJ forays into Somerville, an under-covered booming city north of Boston.
- “Turf War” was featured in POLITICO’S Massachusetts Playbook, and was a flashpoint in the debate over development and privilege in Somerville that’s raging on message boards and at real life community forums.
Excerpt: It’s a tale of two leagues. Babe Ruth Baseball charges less than $200 per year, and is in fellowship with the Somerville Recreation Department, which means that the municipality furnishes all facilities with taxpayer money. The Show, however, reportedly charges thousands of dollars per member (a spokesperson would not provide an exact number). As such, with an elite league consuming increasingly scarce resources, many residents have shown concern that such disparities reflect an enduring gentrification.
The Land Boston Forgot
The (r)evolution of Barry’s Corner and the search for Annie Soricelli
North Allston, known to many as Lower Allston, is a quiet area that largely goes unnoticed. What few outside that neighborhood know is that 50 years ago, hundreds of residents fought in the streets to save their homes from the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Now, after a series of land swaps, Harvard’s Ivy vines are creeping in, and another slew of residents are fighting for their neighborhood. Our writer used archival materials from the Boston Public Library, BRA documents and maps, and testimony from current residents to paint the picture of a forgotten neighborhood.
- Published in DigBoston and on BINJ Medium page.
- Story was promoted with a guerrilla marketing campaign featuring sidewalk spray chalk.
- Author featured on Boston Neighborhood Network News.
- Article was aggregated in POLITICO’s Massachusetts Playbook, and on Storybench.
- A followup community forum was held in Allston featuring a panel with local writers and activists. The recorded event was attended by nearly 50 people including a state representative and other area stakeholders, and covered by the student-run newspaper at Boston University.
Excerpt: “LOOKS LIKE BATTLE” read a headline in the Record-American newspaper on August 8, 1965, and the next day the battle ensued. Joined by victims of urban renewal from elsewhere in the city and activist student groups from Harvard, the residents took to their streets. They picketed and sang songs. They cursed and sat in front of moving vans … During the protests, Soricelli brought cold drinks to her neighbors picketing on the sidewalks. “The only way they’ll evict me is when they carry me out in a casket,” she’s quoted telling the Traveler newspaper. She passed away in December 1966, becoming a symbol of resistance.
SWAT, Inc.
The Commonwealth’s most infamous militarized police force continues to flout records law
When local law enforcement agencies in Massachusetts want to, say, perform a drug raid, but don’t have the paramilitary muscle in house, they can call on the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC). The nonprofit corporation gained national attention for refusing to disclose records to the ACLU of Massachusetts. After a court battle, NEMLEC attorneys agreed that the council is in fact subject to public records law. BINJ reporters put NEMLEC to the test with a flurry of FOIA requests, and in the process explored the inner workings of this ominous outfit.
- Published in the Bay State Examiner, DigBoston, and on the BINJ Medium page.
- Article was teased with video trailer.
- Along with the written feature, “SWAT, Inc.” was released with a documentary short produced by the Bay State Examiner.
Excerpt: In one 2013 incident, NEMLEC sent a 35-person army, including 26 of its SWAT “operators,” to smash into a family home with multiple battering rams around 5 am — all so they could arrest two brothers over a few ounces of pot. After wrapping up this so-called “emergency call-out,” NEMLEC posted the address and a picture of the residence on Twitter. On October 31 two years ago, the council dispatched an astonishing 51 people to patrol for drunken Halloween revelers and unspecified “gang related activity” in Salem, and were urged to “maintain a professional demeanor” because “[everyone] has a camera phone and you don’t want to be on YouTube or the news later.”
Between the Ballot Box and Bogota (Entre Las Urnas y Bogotá)
Part I in ‘A Higher Allegiance: The Rise of a Transnational Identity in Boston’s Immigrant Communities’
As the world hurdles towards globalization, immigrants are no longer either/or, but rather both/and when it comes to their nationalities. For Colombians living in Boston, that means visits from political activists who are campaigning for elections back in Colombian, vying for the emigrant vote. This piece is the first in a series that explores this transnational identity.
- Part of a BINJ immigration reporting project funded through a Beacon Reader campaign.
- The feature was published in DigBoston (cover story) and on the BINJ Medium page.
- Our inaugural bilingual piece, “Between the Ballot Box and Bogota” was translated into Spanish and published in El Planeta.
Excerpt: Turnout abroad for non-presidential Colombian elections is relatively low, hovering between 10 and 15 percent. But compared with the turnout for local Boston elections, which have recently attracted as few as 13 percent of voters, the number is still significant, and indicates that many Colombians do not entirely leave their country behind after emigrating. Rather, their home countries remain a big part of their lives, even as they become American in many ways, thus challenging the idea of total assimilation being the only option for immigrants.
Beyond Remittance
Boston’s Haitian and Haitian-American activists fight for justice across borders and generations
Haiti is a country in turmoil. Devastated by the 2010 earthquake, which killed an estimated 200,000 people, and wrestling with the legacy of the brutal leaders, those who have left their country aren’t always eager to maintain ties. But a growing group of Haitian immigrants and their children are building ties between the two nations to promote justice and root out corruption. This piece is the second in a series that explores transnational identity, and is particularly important considering that Boston has the third-largest Haitian population in the country.
- Part of an immigration project funded through a Beacon Reader campaign.
- Published in DigBoston, on BINJ Medium page.
- This feature also ran in the Boston Haitian Reporter, which was also part of the reporting process in helping our writer and photographer identify insightful sources.
Excerpt: In Boston and other cities across the country, activists like Louijeune plan service trips, organize delegations, and lobby on behalf of Haiti. That isn’t just a way to spend a gap year or pad a résumé, they say. By breaking down borders, Boston’s Haitian-American activists are challenging ideas about immigration and assimilation, proving that being fully Haitian and fully American isn’t a contradiction. “That really gets to the importance of community engagement without borders,” Louijeune says. “As a first-generation American, I can use my privilege to write human rights reports, walk the halls of Congress, [and] travel freely to Haiti and elsewhere in pursuit of justice and resources for the disadvantaged populations among us.”
COLUMNS
We adopted and are cultivating three regular columns — two weekly, one biweekly — with local journalists, and are helping them to syndicate, disseminate, and subsidize their work through merchandise and events. Though BINJ is a feature projects-based incubator, limiting our efforts to longform journalism would prevent us from being able to address the multitude of issues that arise in the minute-to-minute news cycle, while commissioning an in-house editorial board enables us to speak up and remain relevant between the publishing of large-scale investigations. Our columns have already been published in five outlets including Medium.com and DigBoston, where installments run weekly, with more syndicates including national and foreign language publications slated for 2016.
FREE RADICAL by Emily Hopkins
Having built an audience through Free Radical, a weekly DigBoston column, over the past two years, Emily Hopkins — also the BINJ projects coordinator — was a natural fit to become one of our first op-ed contributors. Progressive with a knowledge of young working class Boston, and of the neighborhood of Allston in particular, Hopkins buttresses opinions with hard research including data gleaned from public records requests and observation on the ground. So far, since bringing Free Radical under the BINJ umbrella, Hopkins has opined on everything from the pervasiveness of police officers committing sexual assault, to the student housing crisis, to transgender protections, to housing.
‘No More Than Four’ No More (Excerpt):
If Boston is serious about addressing the student housing crisis, then leaders need to get creative. Slapping the wrists of scofflaw landlords on the myriad violations that put tenants at risk is like playing rental whackamole. Facilitating cooperative networks that help build safe and healthy communities, on the other hand, can help students learn their rights, would foster better relationships between this subsection of tenants and the city, and could provide a better incentive for landlords to keep their units up to code.
Safer Space for All (Excerpt):
These bills will protect our friends, neighbors, teachers, and children. These are the people who are beaten and murdered for expressing their identities, and they need this protection. For those who are uncomfortable with laws allowing trans folks to use the same bathrooms and facilities that they use, I have news for you: You’ve been sharing bathrooms with trans folks this whole time.
Exodus in Eastie (Excerpt):
Boston is a city of transients and shitty landlords, so it can be difficult to understand the idea of displacement. Young professionals, who make up a large portion of our city and get lots of media coverage, are displaced all the time. Rents go up, or they don’t; either way, many people eventually move, as do their friends. Things are different in East Boston. Many of the tenants who were displaced on Maverick Street had called it home for upwards of two decades. They are the faces of the “displacement crisis.”
APPARENT HORIZON by Jason Pramas
As the editor/publisher of the left wing nonprofit newsweekly Open Media Boston from 2008 to April of this year, Jason Pramas had gained regional notoriety for his regular editorials when he joined BINJ as network director in July. On Labor Day, he started a new column to build upon that legacy. While mainly known as a political writer, he called it Apparent Horizon — after a new concept in astrophysics popularized by Stephen Hawking — to indicate his desire to comment on all areas of human endeavor. In just four months, Jason has already addressed a broad array of topics from labor, to global warming, to nuclear power, to prisons, to mass transit. All framed with a Boston hook and a critical edge that only a protest leader with 30-plus years of grassroots political activism under his belt can bring to bear on issues of the day.
Labor Blues (Excerpt):
Improving this difficult situation for labor will require a number of internal reforms, even as the various external crises are taken on. Highest on the list should be democratizing the more authoritarian unions to allow free, full, and ongoing discussions of key political economic issues. Followed by regular, binding, union-wide referenda on vital questions like: “What politicians, if any, should we support in the next election cycle?” And: “What politicians should we punish?” Such a program of reform is absolutely necessary if labor is going to transform itself into the militant independent force for democracy that it once, at its best, was. And stop the kinds of weak back room deals that have passed for political programs in many sectors of American labor for far too long.
Blue Boston (Excerpt):
Funny thing about tunnels like the proposed North-South Rail Link, and about our famously sketchy Big Dig tunnels … they don’t work if they’re flooded. Much like New York’s subway system didn’t work after Hurricane Sandy. So proposing any major infrastructure projects — let alone a rail tunnel — on a known floodplain in the age of global warming is a laughably bad idea. Especially when Boston has no real plan to slow the inevitable flooding of low-lying areas. And stopping the flooding is probably beyond our current technology, or any technology we are likely to develop in the coming decades.
Bargaining Against Ourselves (Excerpt):
As the tremendous success of the Social Security program informs us, society as a whole does better when public services like mass transit contribute to the common good. If we start giving a better deal to one relatively powerless group like poor riders, then other more entitled groups like middle class riders will stop seeing support for the T as being in their best interest. Driving another nail in the coffin of the idea of public transportation as a human right and a critical public service when the governor’s seat is held by a Pioneer Institute privatizer like Charlie Baker and when a Democratic legislature has just suspended the anti-privatization Pacheco law for the T for the next three years.
THE TOKIN’ TRUTH by Mike Crawford
We are very much aware that it is risky business to associate with cannabis reformers. Some of our mentors even warned against taking on Mike Crawford, a noted medical marijuana activist and media personality in Boston for many years. With that said, we are proud to come out ahead of the status quo on this issue, and to be delivering information related to everything from the political push for legalization in Massachusetts, which receives inadequate coverage elsewhere, to the powerful physicians and pharmaceutical companies that spread outrageous claims in arguing against marijuana. Crawford and his cadre of frequent guest columnists rail against censorship and hypocrisy, speak to a significant swath of our growing readership, and famously hold politicians accountable.
Reefer Mad and Power Hungry (Excerpt):
As noted by many activists but ignored by all but niche marijuana media, in another instance, Adelman blamed the bombing of the Boston Marathon on “marijuana withdrawal.” One of his cohorts, Dr. Robert Dupont of the Institute for Behavior and Health, rode a similar bandwagon, arguing that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev smoked his way to failure. DuPont also served as director for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and currently runs one of the largest Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) in the U.S. with former DEA honcho Peter Bensinger. These guys are in the drug-testing business!
Canna-block (Excerpt):
Facebook is OK with advertisements for libelous hate speech and slander against Muslims. Ads for credible marijuana reform journalism, on the other hand, no way. Zuckerberg, if you are listening, you have a problem. Fix it.
Get Giddy Committee (Excerpt):
Then there’s the Neanderthal contingent of the state legislature. Sure to dull the impact of enlightened legislators is Sen. John Keenan of Quincy, who once used a press conference soapbox to declare, “there is no such thing as medical marijuana.” It gets worse, as Keenan once claimed to have “spoken with hundreds of voters regarding the issue of medical marijuana, many of whom voted ‘Yes’ on Question 3, all of whom now believe the law is vague and subject to exploitation.” Sure you did, buddy.
“I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive and empowering environment than BINJ for my first journalistic endeavor. For the first time since I graduated in 2009, I paid a bill with money I used my degree to earn.” -Rachel Hock, BINJ Freelancer (Writing, Research)
BEHIND THE BINJ
Staff & Founders
BINJ was founded in part by Chris Faraone, who is the news and features editor of the weekly DigBoston and an adjunct professor of communications at Salem State University. A diehard advocate for alternative media, Faraone was a staff writer at the Boston Phoenix from 2008 until the newspaper shuttered in 2013, wrote a column for the Jamaica Plain Gazette throughout the last mayoral election, and has published four books based on his reporting beats in Boston. Faraone’s founding partner in BINJ is John Loftus, who also started UNregular Radio, Boston’s first internet radio station to gain a significant presence in the community. Loftus has worked in various multimedia capacities, including as an audio producer and concert promoter, and is a technologist and web developer who currently manages non-editorial operations for DigBoston.
In the spirit of pragmatic collaboration, Loftus and Faraone’s first major administrative move was to join forces with Jason Pramas, whose Open Media Boston was the lone grassroots nonprofit news outlet in the region working along our interest lines. As Pramas wrote in a blog post in July: “When Chris Faraone contacted me to tell me about his idea for a nonprofit incubator that would help teams of journalists produce news articles for distribution to publications all over the Boston area, I immediately realized that the best thing to do was join forces with him.”
Soon after Pramas came on board, Emily Hopkins joined BINJ as our projects coordinator to track and oversee editorial endeavors. A native of Central New York State, Emily studied journalism and English at Boston University, served as a managing editor at Scout Magazines until recently, has contributed to outlets including the New York Times, BDCwire, MuckRock, Bitch Media, and Storybench, and is currently a graduate student in Northeastern University’s Media Innovation program. Along with Hopkins, the initial BINJ core for 2015 also included our first staff writer, Haley Hamilton. A journalist who studied at Northeastern, Hamilton has contributed to DigBoston, Open Media Boston, and Boston.com, and worked as a research assistant at Harvard’s Project on Public Narrative, as a contributor to Homicide Watch Boston, and as a researcher on a joint investigation between Northeastern and the Boston Globe impugning unscrupulous debt collectors.
Network & Diversity
As noted herein, BINJ was formed in large part to serve the growing needs of independent creatives in Greater Boston. To that end, we have already cut more than $15,000 worth of checks to more than 25 freelance writers, researchers, photographers, videographers, editors, and other media makers — some of whom have already published articles and features with us, and others who were paid advances on stories planned for the coming months. Building on those and a number of other projects in our pipeline, we hope to work with at least double that much local talent in 2016.
Like many other news entities, new school and old guard alike, BINJ needs to bolster diversity — both within our own ranks, as well as in the media community in which we operate. Unlike most other outfits, however, we have specific plans in motion to get to the point where we appropriately represent the cities we cover. Our first step was to survey area freelancers, exactly 100 of whom responded to our questionnaire. In that reachout we learned that the landscape is even less diverse than we initially thought — despite Boston being a minority-majority city, more than 91 percent of respondents identified as “white.”
It’s not enough for us to sit around and wait for a diverse mix of media makers to approach us. Some minority reporters have reached out to BINJ, and we are collaborating with several people of color, but the disparity reflected in our survey (and in local media in general) isn’t going to correct itself. With that notion guiding us, we have set out to inform and educate young media makers from various backgrounds — both through our developing story incubation process, as well as via work with youth through Press Pass TV and at the Timilty Middle School in Roxbury, where BINJ volunteers teach reporting skills to a civics class. To keep tabs on diversity in the BINJ network, we will issue a detailed report on our community makeup in 2016.
“Holy moly, this event [The Crisis In The Creative Professions] was fantastic. So many amazing things said by so many amazing people!” -Tim Devin, Communicator & Librarian
DISTRIBUTION
Publishing Partners
Before doing much else, in establishing BINJ we reached out to publishers, editors, and reporters in the local independent, ethnic, and alternative media about ways in which we can help and support their publications and efforts in general. In the process, we have heard that outlets need more of everything — from police reporters who can navigate bureaucracies, to photographers, to better arts reporting. So far, we have been able to provide a little bit of all of the above to collaborators including DigBoston, the Bay State Examiner, Spare Change, El Planeta, and the Boston Haitian Reporter, with several others already working on stories with us slated for release the new year.
Community Engagement
We’re excited that the media intelligentsia has hopped on the so-called “community engagement” train. It’s difficult to find a more direct way of explaining what reporters should be doing. At the same time, the media makers behind BINJ know of no other way. Engagement is critical — the bedrock of our grassroots reporting (un)process — and we hustled nonstop over our first six months to bulldoze boundaries between readers and reporters. Our efforts have so far included:
- A pop-up newsroom through which we brought our reporting right to the community and in the process found sources on the ground. As we reported: “People often think the media’s detached from what actually happens on the ground, and showing up in person seems like a good start to changing that perception.” The concept was simple — we took a desk, some chairs, a rug, and office supplies, and set up shop in public — and in addition to finding a lead for a story commissioned for next year, the effort was covered by the Nieman Journalism Lab.
- Community discussions about some of the stories we publish, as well as forums and meetups about issues that impact our community of media makers. In November, we hosted a full house at the Community Church of Boston for a talk titled, “The Crisis In The Creative Professions: How Can We Make A Living In Boston Again?” The presentations and subsequent question and answer period were recorded, and will be posted soon along with transcripts and our announcement of a follow-up event.
- An online tool called an Action Box which helps us engage our readers beyond the final paragraph of a story. We conceptualized, designed, and programmed the image map in-house for a total cost of nothing, and have been able to direct readers to critical information and resources in addition to the standard “further reading” options at the end of articles.
- A campaign on Instagram (#BINJbrother) to encourage people to share images of surveillance cameras in their communities. Besides helping our reporting on these issues, the exercise helps raise awareness about privacy and civil liberties.
- A civics class we co-teach with Press Pass TV at the Timilty Middle School (BPS) in Roxbury. After working with a group of 20 young people all fall to develop their reporting and note-taking skills, we are currently guiding students through projects based in their school communities and neighborhoods.
Social Media
Facebook (BINJnetwork)
- 1,600+ likes
- Event pages with more than 1,000 subscribers
Twitter (@BINJreports)
- 1,000+ followers
- Twitter group presence is boosted by individual accounts of BINJ reporters and collaborators
Instagram (@BINJmobile)
- 750+ followers
- Photos of 200+ surveillance cameras via dedicated @BINJbrother account
Medium (@BINJ)
- 800+ followers
- 7 subsidiary publications with 100+ dedicated followers
“I was one of the participants at the Pitches & Pitchers workshop. Just wanted to drop a note and say thanks, because I followed as much of your advice I could and I wound up getting a response from my email to a business reporter within a couple hours. We just got the green light from the reporter’s editor, so if all goes well we should get some free publicity soon!” -Ryan Hatcher, Director, Cost and Capital
FUNDRAISING*
*-Our line-by-line end-of-year financial statements are still being processed, and will be available to collaborators and the public in the new year. In the meantime, please direct any related questions to BINJ Operations Director John Loftus: john@binjonline.org.
First and foremost, we would like to thank the Reva & David Logan Foundation in Chicago, and specifically Director Richard Logan, for having faith in BINJ from early on and for helping launch us with a generous $20,000 donation. The funding came approximately two months after we began operating, and enabled us to compensate members of our core crew, organize our business and development side, and begin a number of reporting contracts on nearly a dozen investigative fronts. We have applied for other foundation funding as well, but in 2015 it was the Logan gift that set us in motion.
Individual Donations
Through hard work, social media, and shoe leather, we have been able to raise more than $15,000 from individuals in our first six months. This list of donors includes friends and followers, as well as a growing contingent of independent media supporters — largely in Boston and Cambridge — who are discovering us and reaching out. Though we have solicited these gifts through channels ranging from personalized emails to direct mail, we have processed donations via PayPal, Square Cash, DipJar, and Eventbrite (in addition to personal checks). Over $10,000 of these funds came in through our first crowdfunding campaign via Beacon Reader.
In-Kind Donations
One great thing about being part of a caring community is how many generous people and companies are out there. In networking with those sources, as media experts ourselves, we offer everything from workshops and advice for those who wish to understand the local press ecosystem, to our ability to get everyone from businesspeople to writers, activists, and politicians in the same room for networking events. In our first few months, we were able to leverage these assets for office space in Boston and Cambridge, and into several thousand dollars worth of gifts for our holiday fundraiser.
The Boston Bubble
We produced our first installment of the Boston Bubble, a collectible color quarterly — executed by ace Hub designer Scott Murry — which includes short features about about tech and innovation meant to buck the trend of pay-to-play coverage in those fields. We promoted the premier issue and first event (a media + business cocktail mixer) with effective direct mail and social media campaigns, with sales from the premium palm-sized publication going toward future issues of the Bubble as well as other BINJ projects. As a result of our generating interest on various fronts, we are approaching our goal of having 100 paid subscribers in the first six months — nearly half of which signed up as part of donation reward packages tied to our Beacon Reader campaign and Holiday BINJ gala.
Parties & Events
We have raised money and solicited donations on three specific occasions so far — our inaugural party at the Plough & Stars in Cambridge, the Boston Bubble unveiling at Bastille Kitchen in Boston’s Innovation District, and at our Holiday BINJ. More importantly though, we have provided common ground for media makers, creatives, and people from the communities they cover to mix and share ideas. Increasingly, people in the Greater Boston area are seeing our meetups — which also include workshops for those looking to learn more about the local media ecosystem — as places to connect with BINJ and the local press.
“BINJ is creating a model to keep independent journalism alive. Their dedication to being a watchdog for society is refreshing in a time where so much of our media is owned by so few people.” -Malia Lazu, Executive Director, Future Boston Alliance
PRESS MENTIONS
Association of Alternative News Media
POLITICO’s Massachusetts Playbook
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Daily Free Press (Boston University)
…and more
“I consider it an honor to be working with the BINJ team. There are many stories that need to be told and addressed that get sidelined by the media, which gets more consolidated into a small group of interests each day. More than ever independent journalism is needed. I feel good contributing to telling the stories and helping the group grow.” -Derek Kouyoumjian, BINJ Freelancer (Photo)
FISCAL SPONSORSHIP
We are currently operating under the fiscal sponsorship and guidance of Press Pass TV, a Roxbury-based 501(c)(3) that “educates, employs and empowers youth from all backgrounds through media education, production, and character development.” “Through [their] Media Leadership Institute, Press Pass provides youth with intensive character development workshops and paid opportunities to tell the stories of their communities as well as take on higher paid clients as they increase their skills.” We are among PPTV’s Innovators in Residence, helping them help us build one-of-a-kind opportunities.
FUTURE BINJ
It took five of us more than a week to put together this compendium of what BINJ has accomplished in six months. As for what’s to come in 2016, we could spend a month just outlining our hopes and aspirations. We’d rather use our time actually reporting and organizing though, so here’s a rough sketch, in bullet points, of the exciting year we have planned:
- Features on police misconduct, food safety, housing, unlicensed community radio stations, immigration, the arts, public and special education, drug addiction and recovery, scores of environmental issues, and much more.
- Several hundred public information requests and other critical inquiries into state and local government operations.
- Collaborations with local publications including KillerBoomBox, the Bay State Examiner, Blackstonian, El Planeta, and many others — plus at least one high-profile collaborative effort with a major national political outlet.
- Four new issues of of the Boston Bubble, each with a different theme and new guest writers, photographers, and artists.
- A podcast to showcase BINJ projects, as well as community and independent journalism from around Greater Boston.
- A wire service from the New Hampshire primary polls through which we offer content from the Granite State to alternative outlets in our network nationwide.
- New columns from former Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, who wrote a popular guest polemic for BINJ in November titled, How to Spend $1 Billion in Roxbury (Without Spending a Dime on Roxbury, and a new biweekly column from Maya Shaffer and Andrew Quemere on public records.
- Many more public events on journalism and issues of interest to Boston and its surrounding cities.
