Media Nation

A Muzzle Award for a Rhode Island official who says arrest records aren’t public if there are no charges

Boston Globe reporter Amanda Milkovits, left, talks about her reporting with WPRI-TV (Channel 12) anchor Kayla Fish.

When police officers arrest someone and charge them with a crime, they are required to provide the public with information on that person’s name, address and the charges being brought. That’s a basic part of the public records law in Rhode Island and most other states.

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But the Rhode Island attorney general’s office has come up with a mind-boggling exception: if someone is arrested and not charged, then the police are under no obligation to make that information public. According to Boston Globe reporter Amanda Milkovits, that’s the alleged loophole being invoked (sub. req.) in the case of James Barsoum, who was arrested by Pawtucket police last September in Central Falls. As Milkovits writes:

Last fall, Pawtucket police officers went into a neighboring city without alerting the local police, tackled a resident in his home, seized his dog, booked the man, and put him in a jail cell. He was released hours later without being charged with a crime — and without an explanation.

The official who has come up with this novel interpretation of the public records law is Special Assistant Attorney General Patrick Reynolds, who explained that he was rejecting the Globe’s request for records related to Barsoum’s arrest because even though “there is a public interest in what transpired here, and that the mistaken arrest of a member of the public is highly concerning,” that is outweighed by “privacy interests” guaranteed by a law sealing records when a person has not been charged with a crime.

So come on down, Patrick Reynolds, and claim your New England Muzzle Award. It is well-deserved.

As for Barsoum’s “privacy interests,” keep in mind that he’s been interviewed (sub. req.) about his ordeal, allowed himself to be photographed (with his dog, by the way) and filed a complaint about his arrest. Keep in mind, too, that Central Falls police complied with the Globe’s public-records request, including providing bodycam video. It’s only the Pawtucket police who are holding back, and the AG’s office is letting them get away with it.

“Police in this state can break into your house, wrongfully arrest you, and never have to explain themselves to the communities they serve,” Justin Silverman, the executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, told the Globe. “Think about that: So long as charges aren’t brought, arrests can occur in secrecy and the police reports can be permanently sealed or destroyed. It’s a situation ripe for abuse.”

How a team of Northeastern journalism students covered the aftermath of Hurricane Helene

The Northeastern team behind “Caught in the Current.” Back row from left: Azariah Baker, Beck Orten, Grace Sawin, Hayes Botnick. Middle row from left: Mia Filler, Ali Caudle, Professor Carlene Hempel, Namira Haris, Claire Ogden. Front row from left: Sydney Woogerd, Eva Ciolek Passeri, Valentina Gutierrez.

On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Professor Carlene Hempel at Northeastern and her student Sydney Woogerd. This spring, Carlene brought a team of student journalists to Asheville, North Carolina, for a week-long intensive reporting trip that focused on the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

The result: a digital multimedia investigation called “Caught in the Current: Helene Recovery in Asheville and Beyond.” Put simply, this is a stunning project, with podcasts, videos, photos and text. There’s a great soundtrack. Please do yourself a favor and spend some time with it.

Carlene has been a journalism professor at Northeastern University for more than 20 years. She specializes in teaching long-form narrative writing as well as creating on-site, pop-up newsrooms domestically and abroad for her courses. Her 2025 reporting class and resulting magazine about the 10-year anniversary of Flint, Michigan’s water crisis won two national reporting awards.

*From Sydney Woogerd’s story “Lost and Found.”*

Sydney is studying journalism and international affairs at Northeastern University with a focus on multimedia storytelling. She serves as co-photo director for The Avenue, a student-led fashion publication, where she directs visual strategy and creates editorial content. She has also contributed to The Huntington News and Artistry Magazine as a writer and photographer documenting community stories across Boston. Sydney served as the project’s photo editor.

I’ve got a Quick Take about our recent What Works webinar on “Audience, AI and Events” for local-news publishers, journalists and volunteers. If you missed it, you can watch the videos here.

Ellen shares five lessons learned from watching how the projects that were subjects of our book, “What Works in Community News,” have evolved.

You can listen to our conversation here, or you can subscribe through your favorite podcast app.

How AI-generated local news coverage undermines those who are trying to do it the right way

I’m sorry, but this is just appalling. South Shore News, which uses AI to generate lifelike stories about local government meetings in 19 communities south of Boston, is rolling out subscription fees — and some people are actually paying.

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Aidan Ryan reports (sub. req.) in The Boston Globe that Justin Evans, the founder and and editor as well as a Whitman selectboard member, has signed up 350 paid subscribers, “many of whom are deeply invested in town politics and want to learn more about how neighboring towns from Weymouth down to Plymouth are tackling common issues.”

Continue reading “How AI-generated local news coverage undermines those who are trying to do it the right way”

Talking about media and democracy with the League of Women Voters

I recently had a chance to talk about media and democracy with three super-smart fellow panelists: Steph Solis, co-author of the Axios Boston morning newsletter; Sarah Stone, national field director for the media-reform group Free Press; and Marlene O’Brien of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, who moderated our discussion.

The hour-long program, offered through NewTV of Newton, is part of the League’s “What Democracy Means in Everyday Life” series. I hope you’ll take the time to watch. Here is the press release. And here is a study guide that the League put together.

On the brand-new ‘Beat the Press,’ we try to make sense of the implosion of ‘60 Minutes’

*Click here or on image to watch on Contrarian Boston.*

On the latest episode of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we take a long look at the implosion of “60 Minutes,” the 58-year-old CBS News staple that has been torn apart by Bari Weiss and her choice to run the program, Nick Bilton.

Why did CBS executives fire Scott Pelley? What are we to make of Pelley’s claim in a New York Times interview that Weiss tried to inject bias and at least one falsehood into his report on the killings of Minneapolis protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents? What’s next for “60 Minutes,” which not only continues to be a ratings leader but actually grew over the past year? Does the new Trump-friendly owner, David Ellison, care about any of this?

Also: World Cup watch parties and our panel’s Rants and Raves. With Emily in the moderator’s chair; our host, Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston; Lylah Alphonse of The Boston Globe, and me. Our producer extraordinaire is Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

Extra! Extra! What would Andy think? Check out this special edition of “Beat the Press” in which Emily and her brother, Brian Rooney, talk about how their legendary father would be reacting to the meltdown of “60 Minutes.”

Mass. House bills would expand digital privacy rights but restrict social media for teenagers

The Massachusetts Legislature is poised to expand digital privacy rights following unanimous House passage of a bill whose provisions include banning the sale of precise location data.

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The bill now goes to a conference committee to reconcile differences with a similar, stronger Senate bill that was passed last year. After that, the legislation would be sent to Gov. Maura Healey for her signature.

As Jennifer Smith reports in CommonWealth Beacon, location data can be used to track women who have traveled to Massachusetts from states where abortion is illegal. She writes:

The House completely bans the sale of precise geolocation data but would allow the sale of all other sensitive data if the user gives consent. The location shielding would cover those visiting Massachusetts as well as its residents.

“Protecting location data is paramount if the rights in Massachusetts to reproductive health care equity are to be upheld,” said Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian of Melrose. Data brokers have tracked interstate visits to Planned Parenthood locations in Massachusetts, she noted, and then provided that data to an anti-abortion campaign. Now, she said, the Trump administration is purchasing location data for immigration enforcement.

“One’s personal location data should never be monetized by a private for-profit company working in concert with the dystopian government to undermine our constitutional right to due process,” Lipper-Garabedian said.

According to the advocacy group Fight for the Future, the House version “would be one of the strongest data privacy bills in the United States” and includes a provision that would allow individuals to sue large technology companies for abuses of their personal data. Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, said in a statement:

Companies shouldn’t be able to track you everywhere you go and then sell that information on the open market. Today, Massachusetts took a major step toward cracking down on Big Tech’s surveillance abuses. In Trump’s America, we know that privacy protections are a matter of life and death for LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented folks, and other vulnerable communities. We’ll continue to push for the MA legislature to pass the strongest privacy legislation possible.

Smith reports that the House and Senate must also work out their conflicts with regard to another bill, this one banning cellphone use by students while in the classroom. The House version would also ban social media accounts for children who are 13 or younger and would require 14- and 15-year-olds to have a parent or guardian’s permission before signing up.

That provision, which the governor supports, has been widely criticized on the grounds that it could harm LGBTQ youth or teenagers in abusive homes. The Senate version contains no such restriction.

Mike Deehan, reporting for Axios Boston, writes that a coalition of some 90 civil-rights and privacy groups (including Fight for the Future) have come out against the restriction, adding: “Federal judges have blocked similar laws in Florida, Louisiana and Ohio on First Amendment grounds.”

A deal is reached to save public TV in New Jersey — and perhaps to save NJ Spotlight News as well

*“NJ Spotlight News” anchor Briana Vannozzi, right, interviews U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.*

An agreement has been reached that would save NJ PBS. If it’s approved by the state legislature, it could prove to be a lifeline for NJ Spotlight News as well.

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Spotlight, a 16-year-old website covering politics and public policy, merged with NJ PBS in 2019. The television network’s daily half-hour newscast is also branded as “NJ Spotlight News,” and there’s quite a bit of content-sharing between the newscast and the website.

The agreement was reported by Nicolas Fernandes of NJ.com, who writes that Montclair State was one of four organizations that submitted bids to sponsor NJ PBS. Now that the university has been selected by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority, the legislature will have 15 days to review it.

Continue reading “A deal is reached to save public TV in New Jersey — and perhaps to save NJ Spotlight News as well”

A Muzzle Award to the National Park Service for outrageous censorship at the Bunker Hill Monument

*Bunker Hill Monument. Photo by John S. Moulton, taken between 1860 and 1889, is part of the Boston Public Library Collection.*

You could call the Trump regime’s campaign against so-called woke ideology an ongoing effort to muzzle our nation’s history. From the start of his second term, the National Park Service has engaged in a rampage of censorship, targeting historical sites in Philadelphia, Georgia, New York and elsewhere.

Now Trump has come for Boston. On Wednesday, Jake Spring reported in The Washington Post that the park service “has ordered the removal of three quotes” at the Bunker Hill Monument. Thus has the National Park Service earned a New England Muzzle Award. Spring writes:

The site includes panels with quotes from historic figures or writings that reflect on the 200-year-old monument. A visitor at the site complained to park staff about a quote related to women’s suffrage as being “woke” feminist ideology, the people familiar said, and the visitor later sent an email complaint.

The Boston Globe’s Tonya Alanez and Chloe Pisani on Thursday added to (sub. req.) the Post’s reporting, writing that they had confirmed the story with U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s office. The Globe reported that one of the three quotes to be removed was from an 1846 letter by G.B. Stebbins to The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery newspaper:

As we drew near to Boston, there stood Bunker Monument, towering up towards the heavens, as if in silent, bitter mockery of the millions of slaves guarded by the professed lovers of Liberty, who reared its lofty column.

Another, addressed to “Our Irish Societies,” appeared in The Pilot, the newspaper of Boston’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese, in 1875:

Now that a public orator has declared that foreign-born men have no association with the men of the Revolution, it is our duty to show that in love of freedom and loyalty to the republic, the citizens of foreign birth take no second place.

The third quote that was removed was from a letter to the Globe written in 1971 by two members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

It seems significant that the three quotes pertain to the rights of Black people and immigrants as well as an antiwar message — all at odds with Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, war-mongering administration.

The government’s officially sanctioned vandalism coincides with another act of vandalism at Boston’s Museum of African American History. Malcolm Gay reports (sub. req.) in the Globe that decorations to be used in Juneteenth celebrations had been set on fire.

Ironically, the investigation is being led by the Boston Police Department — and the National Park Service.

Ending the requirement that legal ads be published by news outlets would harm democracy and journalism

*An alternative approach to public notices. Photo (cc) 2011 by Selena M.B.H.*

Since Colonial times, state and local governments have been required to publish legal advertisements in newspapers about official proclamations, court citations, vital records, and the like. Also known as public notices, these agate-size ads inform the community of important public business — and provide the press with a crucial revenue stream.

Now, though, that system is under threat in Massachusetts. Two bills would allow legal ads to be published on government websites without any mandate that they be placed with news organizations.

Read the rest at CommonWealth Beacon.

A coming seismic shift at The Minnesota Star Tribune as its owner seeks a nonprofit partner

By Ellen Clegg

Just a month ago, The Minnesota Star Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for “powerful stories marked by thoroughness and compassion” in its coverage of the Annunciation Church shootings last year. Who wasn’t moved by the photo of a mom running barefoot toward the church — a strappy summer pump in each hand?

This year, the newsroom’s coverage of ICE detentions and the ensuing local protests — a neighborly Minnesota Nice rebellion of sorts — was nothing short of stellar.

But what a difference a month can make in the volatile and unforgiving world of what media analyst Ken Doctor calls “newsonomics.” On Tuesday, Steve Grove, publisher, announced that it will cut its staff by 15% through layoffs and buyouts.

Read the rest at What Works.