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Berkshire Eagle publisher/president invites public to talk at BrewHaHa! on Friday 9 a.m.-10 a.m.

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NORTH ADAMS -- Frederic Rutberg, president/publisher and co-owner of The Berkshire Eagle is bringing one in a series of "coffee and conversation" meetings with the public to the new location of BrewHaHa! cafe/restaurant at 437 West Main St., in North Adams on Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.  It's a chance for readers -- print and Internet -- to provide suggestions and constructive feedback on the news organization's efforts. 

For two decades The Eagle and its sister papers in Brattleboro, Bennington and Manchester, Vt., were owned by a Denver-based chain which gradually reduced the size of its newsroom, closed The Transcript and The Advocate weekly and raised subscription rates.  In May 2016, four businessmen -- three of them with homes in the Berkshires, purchased the papers for a undisclosed sum and have adding reporters, editors, graphic artists and other support staff in Pittsfield with the goal of creating "the finest community newspaper group in America." 

Rutberg, a retired state district-court judge who lives in Stockbridge, has been operational leader of the new owners of New England Newspaper Inc. (NENI).  Shortly after the ownership change, Rutberg inaugurated a circuit-riding approach to checking in with readers, appearing at coffee shops and other venues throughout the Berkshires. Friday's visit is at least the third in northern Berkshire County. 

"Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee and get to know our president and publlisher, editor and other key managers," says a invitational advertisement which appeared in an edition of last week's paper. "Tell us about your neighborhood, ask us questions, share your concenrs, or stop in just to chat. The coffee is free, the conversatoin is informal and information . . . . " 

 

 

How do you trust that news isn't "fake" -- on Monday, Williamstown panel will offer answers

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Two libraries are sponsoring a public forum that will help members of the public to discern quality, trustworthy news from material that is based on rumors or lies.

 ” Fact or Fabrication in Today’s News,” is set for on Monday, March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Williamstown Youth Center. It is co-sponsored by the North Adams Public Library and the Milne Public Library in Williamstown.

 "Intended as an educational rather than a partisan conversation, it will feature a panel of journalists, educators and a library advocate taking questions on how news is presented and consumed in modern culture and how that process affects our views as informed citizens and voters," says Pat MCLeod, director of the Milne library.

 Panelists will touch on the state of media literacy; ways to improve it and the role schools and libraries can play in meeting that challenge. Audience participation is encouraged. State First Berkshire District Rep. Gail Cariddi,  (D-North Adams) will moderate.

Journalists on the panel are Tammy Daniels, managing editor of iBerkshires; Carrie Saldo, a Berkshire Eagle news reporter with a background in radio and television; and Martin Langeveld, former publisher of The Eagle and The Transcript, who currently comments on the future of media in his blog “News After Newspapers.”

 Educators are Jennifer Browdy, associate professor of comparative literature at Simon’s Rock of Bard College, who is teaching a course on “Media Production and Consumption in the Age of Fake News and Alternative Facts”; Shawn McIntosh, a journalist who teaches English and Communications at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and is the primary adviser to The Beacon student newspaper; and Peter Niemeyer, history teacher at Mount Greylock Regional High School and adviser to the Mount Greylock Echo student newspaper.

 Krista McLeod, director of the Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen and a member of the Massachusetts Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee, will speak to the role of libraries. The session will be videotaped by WilliNet for later viewing on television Channel 17 and online at WilliNet.org.

 For more information, contact McLeod at 413-458-5369 or [email protected];  or Mindy Hackner, librarian, North Adams Public Library, 413-662-3133 or mhackner@#cwmars.org.

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New owner to Rotary: Eagle adds 22 employees, three reporters -- and we'll fix "horrible" website

Eagle co-owner Frederic Rutberg, left, receives mug from Williamstown Rotary Club president Allen Hall

 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Berkshire Eagle has created 22 new jobs in Pittsfield, and three new reporting positions, since it returned May 2 to local ownership and is now able to “stop the presses” for major news, its chief executive told a gathering of Rotarians on Tuesday.

Under two decades of chain ownership, “no one was stopping the presses for a fire in Pittsfield,” said Frederic Rutberg, a retired state-court judge who serves as president of New England Newspapers Inc., The Eagle’s owner. “It wasn’t going to happen.” He said later deadlines may also allow the return of some late-game stories and scores.

In a talk to about 20 people at the Williams Inn, Rutberg said he had set a goal of speaking to every Rotary Club in the Berkshires. He said readers should expect to see significant changes in how the paper looks within 60-90 days as a series of production and business services outsourced to Michigan, Connecticut, Colorado and Pennsylvania return.

Speaking for the ownership group, which besides Rutberg includes banker Robert G. Wilmers, and venture capitalist John “Hans” Morris – all of Stockbridge – and retired Buffalo News publisher Stanford Lipsey, Rutberg said their goal is to become “the finest community-newspaper group in America.”

Rutberg invited all of the region’s residents to “be our partners” by subscribing to the print or digital versions of the paper, by contributing news and information to help make The Eagle the “town square” of the Berkshires. He urged folks to tell friends about what they like in the paper, and “tell me what you don’t like” – offering his email address of [email protected] for feedback.

He said new subscribers are being offered two weeks of the paper for free.

“We hope to have a group of citizen journalists to cover meetings . . . to help beef up local coverage . . . that’s our goal,” said Rutberg. He said a recent survey showed that the news organization’s audience over age 55 almost exclusively reads the print daily, while those under 55 almost exclusively seek out its reports online either on The Eagle website or on Facebook, where some of its stories are posted. He said the owners know the paper’s own website is “horrible” and it will be upgraded within a month or so.

Among upcoming changes, said Rutberg, will be a reversal of two of three trends over two decades.   The paper has become smaller, thinner and the price went up. “We plan to reverse all that, but I’m afraid we can’t reverse the price,” he said. The owners have already added several additional news pagers per day, and plan to physically increase the width of the newsprint on the press, making pages wider.

“We’re here to serve and we’re hear for the long haul,” said Rutberg.

Taking questions, Rutberg was asked about the longterm prognosis for print newspapers. He said papers continue to be profitable and to be the mainstay of quality, investigative reporting. But he acknowledged that there will probably be a time when the print newsapaper becomes extinct or a niche product. “A newspaper is like a melting ice cube,” he said. “But we’re going to slow it down,” he said by delivering quality news and more of it, among other things, and by delivering information in other ways, too.

Complaint alleges Planning Board majority favors Williams hotel over Deep's; Planning Board asserts no Open Meeting Act violation; selectmen back Deep language 4-1; FinCom takes no action

This post was updated at 11:45 a.m., May 16, 2016 to reflect new action by the Planning Board. The headline previously read: "Complaint alleges Planning Board majority favors Williams hotel over Deep's; "indicates" unspecified Open Meeting Act violations; selectmen back Deep language 4-1; FinCom takes no action"

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. --  A town resident on May 9 filed a complaint with the town alleging a “possible Open Meeting Law violation” by three members of the Planning Board. On May 16, the Planning Board voted, 5-0, to send a letter to the complainant, David Legaj, saying no violation occurred.

The Open Meeting Act complaint also alleges bias by the board in favor of Williams College, and seeks the overturning of a May 4 board vote that went against developer Michael Deep. The three members each said they were unaware of any violations and that they follow the law.

There were these additional developments on May 9: 

• Selectmen voted 4-1 to reject the advice of the Planning Board on Michael Deep's proposed 120 "unit" hotel zoning change at Waubeeka Golf Links.  Selectmen agreed that the hotel building sought by Deep should not have its square-footage size restricted. The Planning Board recommends a limit of 60,000 square feet, roughly between the size of the Williams Inn and The Orchards. Voters must resolve the conflicting advice at the May 17 town meeting or table the matter. (LISTEN TO AUDIO OF THE MEETING) | READ TRANSCRIPT OF MEETING df
  
  
• The Finance Committee voted unanimously not to take any position on the Waubeeka proposal after hearing economic arguments for it from Deep's attorney, Stanley Parese.

The Open Meeting Act complaint dated as of Sunday and signed by David M. Leja, who gave his address as 141 Luce Road, Williamstown, was received by the town on Monday. Under the state Open Meeting Act, a board that is the subject of such a complaint has 14 days to respond. Messages left on a voice-mail machine at the phone number listed on Leja's complaint were not immediately answered. The Berkshire Eagle reported that Leja said he filed the complaint at the urging of others because the "the orchestration of the 'Gardner amendment' is problematic to many people in town because it has the appearance of a backroom deal."  He reportedly said he hoped his complaint would "clear the air." 

READ / VIEW COPY OF LEJA COMPLAINT

Town Manager Jason Hoch acknowledged receipt of the complaint and said he personally "have not seen any electronic correspondence on which I have also been copied that had more than two members of the Planning Board."  Amy Jeschawitz, the board’s chair, did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Leja’s complaint consists of an approximately 300-word narrative beginning: “I believe an intentional violation of the Open Meeting Law occurred.” It goes on to allege that Planning Board members Sarah Gardner, Ann McCallum and Elizabeth McGowan met at unspecified times, “in person or electronically.” The complaint provides narrative assertions about outside-of-meeting activities, but cites no specific date or time of any open-meeting violation other than the period between the board's April 28 and May 4 meetings.

It alleges the unspecified alleged meetings involving "working with a group of individuals including an abutter attorney"  in order to co-author a proposal – adopted 3-2 by the board on May 4 – to recommend a zoning change for a 50,000-60,000-foot hotel at the Waubeeka Golf Links. The complaint seeks to have that vote rescinded, if Open Meeting Act violations took place.

Sarah Gardner and Ann McCallum, who called GreylockNews.com with information about the complaint, said no violations occurred; that they are aware of the law, which generally forbids outside-of-meeting collaborations by a majority of a public body. In the case of the Planning Board, that would mean two members could meet, but not three.

Gardner called the open-meeting violation "completely absurd." She said that while she and McCallum have met outside of meetings, McGowan was not involved in such meetings.

McGowan also told GreylockNews.com she was not personally aware of any open-meeting law violations and has tried to avoid being present at public events where a quorum of the board might inadvertently be present. She said the three versions of the amendments to the Citizen's Petition were all posted to the Planning Board's Google Docs page on the Town Hall website by the afternoon of May 2, more than 48 hours before the meeting, "so there was plenty of time for everyone to read and digest the three proposals."

Leja’s complaint, although containing one factual error, generally alleges that the trio have showed bias against a proposal by Waubeeka owner Michael Deep, who is seeking zoning changes to build a hotel of up to 120 rooms "units"  (potentially multi-room suites)  on up to 10 acres of the 207-acre golf course. At the same time, Leja’s complaint says they favored a proposal by Williams College for a zoning change to build a 60-100-inn hotel at the end of Spring Street. Leja terms the Waubeeka proposal “a competitor” to the Williams bid.

Both are slated for discussion and possible voting at the May 17 town meeting.

The factual error in Leja’s complaint: It states Gardner, McCallum and McGowan are all employed by Williams College. Gardner and McGowan both teach at the school; McCallum has taught there in the past. Leja’s complaint also notes that the same three members voted to recommend voters approve the Williams-sought zoning change. However, it did not mention the vote was unanimous, 5-0 and was taken after the board invoked a state-sanctioned “rule of necessity” because of employment conflicts involving three of its five members – Gardner, McGowan and member Chris Winters, who also works at the college.

Updated at 10:48 p.m., 05-09-16, to include comment from Town Manager Jason Hocht

Updated at 8:04 a.m. on 05-10-16, to clarify that the Deep proposal is for 120 lodging "units" not rooms, and to include Leja comments reported by The Berkshire Eagle.

Updated at 8:25 a.m. to note votes by Selectmen and Finance Committee.

Company which manages nationally cited, super-fast Internet broadband for Leverett says it will respond to new request from Williamstown

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The town has taken a first step toward creating a super-fast Internet competitor to Time Warner cable, and Crocker Communications Inc., the Greenfield-based company which managed building a municipal system for Leverett, Mass., said on Friday it may be interested in helping.

Responses are due by May 20 to a town "Request for Information" which was posted on Williamstown.net -- the town's website -- on Thursday. The RFI says the town is evaluating "options for making broadband available to its residents and businesses" by "evaluating the last-mile options to make fiber optic cable available to its residents and businesses."

In an email exchange with GreylockNews.com, Matt Crocker, president of family owned Crocker Communications Inc., said: "We are very interested. Thanks for sending me the link. We will work up a response." Crocker's participation in the Leverett 1-gigabit municipal Internet system has been written up as a national case study. Now, nearly 500 Western Massachusetts residents are petitioning Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker to release $50 million in funds to build rural broadband.

The town's RFI, authored by Selectman Andrew Hogeland, notes that the quasi-public Massachusetts Broadband Initiative delivers super-fast Internet service to Williams College and the Clark Art Institute, as well as to town buildings and other community-anchor institutions such as town hall, the library, schools and fire station.

But so far, connecting this government-owned and paid-for Internet connectivity, has proved a competitive and bureaucratic challenge throughout Western Massachusetts, despites its educational value. In effect, super-fast, publicly owned Internet connections exists throughout the region, but almost no citizens can connect to them.   The town's RFI is a response to suggestions in last year's town Economic Development Committee report. Hogeland served on the committee.

That December 2015 report concluded the town "should continue to investigate the potential of broadband access to be a community asset for both residents and businesses, and to understand the project scope, costs, benefits and organization options for such a project so that an informed decision can be made whether to pursue broadband access."

Connections to the Internet have been available in Williamstown and the region for at least 25 years, first through "dial-up" phone connections, then through so-called "Digital Subscriber Lines" -- DSL -- via phones, and for at least 20 years from the monopoly cable-television franchisee -- now Time Warner Cable and soon to be Charter Communications via a merger.

But the issue has been speed of access. As entertainment -- movies and other services such as connection to medical-technology or distance learning -- have increasingly moved from text to multi-media, the need for faster connections is seen by some as an economic-development priority.

Verizon has technical difficulty delivering speeds of more than 5 megabits/second over phone lines because they are copper wires to homes; Time Warner's fiber-optic cable lines to homes can support speeds many times faster, but Time Warner's prices for doing so are prohibitively high for consumers -- $80 a month for only 10 megabits/second -- barely fast enough to watch a low-definition movie. Also, both Verizon and Time Warner's standard services are "asynchronous" -- the speed to download (consume) information are as advertised, but the speeds to upload (create) information are a fraction of that. Thus they create a culture and reality of consumption rather than creation.

By contrast, Leverett residents, served by Massachusetts Broadband and local fiber-optic cables managed by Crocker, delivers 1 gigabit service to homes (that's 1,000 megabits/second) for $80/month -- or about 100 times the monopoly broadband supplier Time Warner is selling for $80/month. And the Leverett service is "synchronous" -- the upload and download speeds are the same.

Last year, Citizen Media Inc., the non-profit publisher of the Greylock Independent newsletter and website, organized a community discussion of broadband options for the region. Despite repeated invitations, neither Verizon nor Time Warner sent any representatives to the discussion.

Besides non-broadband consumer Internet services provided by Verizon, and monopoly-priced broadband services from Time Warner, the other potential superfast link to the web in the Greylock region besides MassBroadband is a fiber optic cable buried along the old Boston & Maine railroad right-of-way. It's not clear who controls the cable, installed during the 1990s by the old MCI Telecommunications Corp. or what the cost might be to connect to it.

RELATED LINKS:

• "The Hills are Alive: Without the Sound of Internet Access" -- Susan Crawford
• Broadband links
• Selectman Andrew Hogeland's efforts began July 2015
• Earlier reports by GreylockNews.com on broadband

Coming? Small group in Williamstown to meet March 1 to plan "community information hub"

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Participants are sought to join an ad-hoc group will meet March 1 to consider information needs of the Greylock region, and the possibility of forming an "online information hub" for Williamstown. The decision to meet came at the end of a community-information needs assessment meeting on Jan. 24. Download MP3 podcast. Monday's meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Williamstown, say co-organizers Bill Densmore and Gail Burns.

"We met twice in 2006, and in January," says Densmore. "The technology, ideas and need are all present. It's time take some collaborative baby steps."

Tentative agenda:

• Participate in a demonstration of Jeff Vander Clute's "Avanoo" social news-networking software.
• Resume discussing the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities report and its list of critical community information needs.
• Learn about the Shires Media Partnership Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit which now owns WBTN-AM 1370kc in Bennington.
• Consider opportunities for collaboration among regional media and citizens.
• Take some baby steps at innovation.

BACKGROUND:

CLICK TO STREAM AUDIO OF JAN. 24 MEETING:

The Jan. 24 meeting was not a a town-sanctioned event.  (VIEW AGENDA) It was organized by town resident Bill Densmore (author of this post) a future-of-journalism researcher. Participants besides Densmore and Burns included town residents John Albano, Richard Taskin, Moira Jones, Patrick Dunleavy, Ben Greenfield, Deb Dane and Suzanne Dewey. Pownal, Vt., residents Ray and Dawn Rodrigues  also participated, along with two invited participants:

-- David Scribner, a Pittsfield-based writer and weekly newspaper editor. Scribner, a former editor of The Berkshire Eagle and The Bennington Banner, has applied to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for a grant to launch "Newshare Commons" -- a journalist-guided, social news network in libraries, cafes and public spaces. Scribner hopes the Berkshires/SW Vermont will be one test region.

-- Jeff Vander Clute, of Palo Alto, Calif., president of CircLabs Inc., a company part-owned by the University of Missouri School of Journalism. CircLabs is working to find solutions for sustaining the values, principles and purposes of journalism in our rapidly evolving media ecosystem.  Vander Clute is developing the technology for a "news social network"  which might become part of the Newshare Commons project. Vander Clute is a 1995 Williams College graduate and was part of a core group at the start of Tripod Inc.

LINKS:

• Things neighborhood blogs can talk about

LISTEN TO AUDIO OF 90-MINUTE DISCUSSION

The 12-person group spent 90 minutes considering whether the Williamstown region's "community information needs" are being met, based upona set of 10 key indicators suggested in  a reported released in October by the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities.  And they added an additional proposed indicator: "Does an infrastructure exist for constructive, civic problem solving?"

Reviewing 15 recommendations from the Knight Commission report, the group focused on one on which there was consensus for action: "Ensure that every local community has at least one high-quality online hub." To advance that idea, about half the participants agreed to meet again at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 1, at the First Congregational Church in Williamstown.  (The followup meeting was originally set for Feb. 22)

ADVANCES A GATHERING IN BENNINGTON

Tuesday's gathering advanced by two days a more formal gathering at the Bennington (Vt.) Free Library organized by Shires Media Partnership Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit which owns radio station WBTN in  Bennington (I serve on its volunteer board). The announcement of that event should give you a sense our
subject domain for Tuesday. See: http://dbs.hosting.crocker.com/wiki/index.php/Community-bennington

To get a feel for what a metropolitan area like Seattle can put together to study its 'news ecosystem,' " said Densmore, "Review this page from the Journalism That Matters Pacific Northwest gathering Jan. 7-10 -- http://www.rjiwiki.org . . . . "

Densmore may be reached at 413-458-8001 or [email protected].

Bennington forum draws more than 20 people for public comment on community information needs

By Bill Densmore
(The writer is a directorof Shires Media Partnership and lives in Williamstown, Mass.)

BENNINGTON, Vt. -- Shires Media Partnership Inc., the non-profit owner of radio station WBTN convened a regional meeting at the Bennington (Vt.) Free Library on Thurs. Jan. 28 to gather public comment and advice on how it can meet the information needs of Southwestern Vermont. The session was inspired by the work of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities.  Approximately 20 people participated. WBTN 1370 AM's signal reaches Bennington, Southwestern Vermont and nearby New York, but its Web streaming reaches around the world. The meeting ran from from 5 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. at the library. Light snacks will be available for those missing dinner.

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• LISTEN TO AUDIO OF THE TWO-HOUR MEETING
• READ THE AGENDA AND DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
• READ NOTES OF THE DISCUSSION

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In addition to members of the Shires Media governing board and WBTN staff, the founder of a local online news community for the Burlington, Vt., area -- Michael Wood-Lewis of Front Porch Forum, attended.
"We're asking the public to tell us how they get information and how we can be part of their information network," said Ken Norris, Executive Director of WBTN. "We want to know not only where they get their local news, arts and entertainment but where they get information about what is important in their lives: jobs, housing, taxes, safety, education, transportation, child care, health care and religion."

Public Radio’s Charlayne Hunter-Gault Speaks at MCLA October 15

NORTH ADAMS, MA—National Public Radio Special Correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault will speak at this fall’s Hardman Lecture Series event at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Thursday, October 15, at 7 p.m. in the Church Street Center. Hunter-Gault, an award-winning journalist with more than 40 years in the industry, delivers a lecture entitled “Africa’s Women on the Move.” The Hardman Lecture Series is made possible through the generosity of the Hardman Family Endowment. The event is free and open to the public.

Hunter-Gault is the author of In My Place, a memoir of the civil rights movement fashioned around her experiences as the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia. Her latest book is New News Out of Africa: Uncovering the African Renaissance. A global journalist, Hunter-Gault spent six years as CNN’s Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent before returning to NPR.
She was NPR’s chief correspondent in Africa.

Hunter-Gault first joined NPR in 1997 after 20 years with PBS, where she worked as a national correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.  She began her journalism career as a reporter for The New Yorker, before working as a local news anchor for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. and as the Harlem bureau chief for The New York Times.  Her honors include two Emmy awards and two Peabody awards—one for her work on Apartheid's People, a NewsHour series about South African life during apartheid and the other for general coverage of Africa in 1998.

Hunter-Gault also was the recipient of the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, the 1990 Sidney Hillman Award, the American Women in Radio and Television award, the Good Housekeeping Broadcast Personality of the Year Award and a 2004 National Association of Black Journalists Award for her CNN series on Zimbabwe. She also received awards from Amnesty International for her Human Rights reporting, especially her PBS Series, Rights and Wrongs, a human rights television magazine.  In August, 2005, she was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.

Hunter-Gault delivers lectures around the country and holds more than three dozen honorary degrees. She also serves on the board of The Peabody Awards and The Committee to Protect Journalists and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

For information on the Hardman Lecture Series at MCLA call (413) 662-5185 or visit www.mcla.edu/speakers.

SVC convenes May 5 strategy session on regional media center

BENNINGTON, Vt. -- Southern Vermont College is convening a day-long seminar on Saturday, May 5, to consider how the school might foster establishing a "center for community media," according to David Scribner, a spokesman and journalism teacher for the small private college. Scribner discusses the event with Media Giraffe Project Editor Bill Densmore in a 29-minute broadcast inteview aired on WBTN, 1370 AM, the college's community radio station.

CLICK ON RIGHT CARAT BELOW TO LAUNCH AUDIO STREAM OF INTERVIEW:

OR DOWNLOAD MP3 FOR LATER LISTENING 

For details, go to: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/bennington/invitation.pdf . . . the event is by-invitation-only because of space limitations. To seek an invitation, email Scribner at [email protected] .

Public invited to film, photo, web, 3D tech session at MGRHS

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The representative of a new initiative at Boston University is making a presentation on Monday April 2 at Mount Greylock Regional High School on advances in the use of digital-media in filmmaking, photography, animation, game design, graphics and studio recording. The presentation by Bill Chenaille, of BU's Center for Digital Imaging Arts will give a multimedia presentation from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. that is free and open to the public.

The presentation was scheduled by Michael J. Powers, M.Ed., the instructional-technology specialist at the regional high school as part of an effort to update the community on career options in digital media. Powres can be reached at 413-458-9592 ext. 142, or home: 802-447-1754 or [email protected].