We’ve seen a dramatic loss of sponsorship support. In the digital age, almost all that money now goes to the big platforms — like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Spotify. This is bad news for the news business and has created big gaps that can’t easily be filled. In the last five years, our annual on-air sponsorship income (underwriting) has dropped by more than 40 percent — nearly $7 million.
Media
Posted inOpinion
Streaming fee needed to save cable access channels
Many customers are canceling their cable subscriptions in favor of online streaming services. As the number of cable subscribers drops, so does the available funding for PEG stations.
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s most popular Codcasts of 2023
“I really take that as a kind of a philosophy, almost, at this particular point, that I want to be as optimistic as I possibly can, knowing the bleakness of my situation as a reality, but also to walk on air, meaning, I think, take chances that you might have put off at other times in your life.”
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s most-read commentary pieces of 2023
Perhaps not surprising at a time when it often feels like MBTA stands for “more bad transit agita,” half of the 10 most-read commentary pieces of 2023 related in some way to how we get around, two of them specifically zeroing in on the T.
Posted inMedia
CommonWealth Beacon’s top news stories in 2023
Three of the most-read stories from CommonWealth, which rebranded as CommonWealth Beacon in November, related to transportation, and the top story, about a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation study, focused on transportation and the fallout from COVID and remote work on the downtown Boston office market.
Posted inMedia
Will artificial intelligence make or break newsrooms?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is already in the newsroom. Smart transcription software helps reporters go through their notes faster and review meetings they didn’t have a chance to attend in person, large language models like ChatGPT might summarize notes or draft memos and emails, and organizations are increasingly leaning on AI tools to create graphics. Some are […]
Posted inMedia
The Emancipator prepares to relaunch with focus on video essays
The Emancipator, a digital nonprofit publication devoted to reframing the conversation around racial equity, is launching a new website and hiring a new editor.
Posted inMedia
Welcome to CommonWealth Beacon
CommonWealth changes its name today to CommonWealth Beacon, a move that has been in the works for a long time and signals a shift in attitude at what may be the state’s oldest nonprofit news organization.
Posted inOpinion
Why is nonprofit news taking off in Massachusetts?
Nonprofit news is catching on. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in Massachusetts, where nonprofit news outlets seem to be propagating like rabbits.
Posted inHealth, Media
Campbell leads legal challenge to Meta’s Facebook, Instagram
ATTORNEY GENERAL Andrea Campbell filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Meta Platforms, alleging that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms violated Massachusetts consumer protection laws by knowingly utilizing methods to hook and consequently harm young people. This lawsuit is part of an effort by attorneys general in 42 states who are filing similar lawsuits in their […]
