New reporter at CommonWealth

ATTENTIVE READERS may have noticed a new byline in CommonWealth over the last month. Jennifer Smith has joined the magazine as a staff reporter, replacing Shira Schoenberg, who left CommonWealth after three years to join the Boston Globe editorial page. 

Smith has covered Massachusetts for a variety of publications over the past decade, coming to the state from California and Utah. While completing her journalism degree at Northeastern University, Smith worked breaking news in the Globe’s metro section and reported from the courtroom in the Boston Marathon trial for international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). For four years, Smith was a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on housing policy and politics during several transformative election cycles. 

You may have seen her writing and analysis on BNN, WBUR, and GBH News, or spotted a guest newsletter top for Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook breaking down the grand shuffle in Boston’s planning and development universe. Smith stayed close to the Massachusetts journalism world while completing two years of law school before returning to the field full-time – she has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts statewide politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018.

“So much of our work is about bringing often opaque government processes down to the personal and local level, or connecting what may seem like an idiosyncratic quirk in one city or town to a broader experience across the state,” Smith said. “I’m thrilled to be reporting for CommonWealth and continuing its legacy of thoughtful, vital journalism. See you out in the world, up on Beacon Hill, and probably stuck on the Red Line.”

To get in touch, email jsmith@massinc.org or follow her on Twitter at @JennDotSmith.