Good evening,

This week was a good one for:

  • Feeling the stirrings of spring, with temperatures north of 32º for most of the week 🌷
  • Boston women's hockey, as Boston Fleet captain Megan Keller scored the epic winning goal against Canada for a U.S. gold at the Milan Olympics 🏒
  • Public utility company Eversource, which reported “skyrocketing” profits from 2025, even as it faces criticism for jacking up prices on consumers 📈

It was a bad week for:

  • Efficiency in the Massachusetts state legislature, as legislative leaders continue to drag their feet on state immigration policy to protect our communities from ICE 🐌
  • Transparency from the Healey administration, who announced that Massachusetts would be the first state to deploy AI across the executive branch. This commits state employees to a 3-year, multimillion dollar contract with OpenAI without an open contracting process 🤖
  • Feeling the stirrings of spring, as yet another blizzard lurks around the corner ❄️

It was also a bad week for local news coverage of Massachusetts politics. 🗞️Spoiler alert: that’s our topic today. Luckily, it is always a good week to read a Saturday Scoop! 🍦

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State House Scoop

This week, followers of Massachusetts politics from Beacon Hill to the Berkshires opened our morning emails to shocking news. News outlet POLITICO announced the abrupt cancellation of its popular daily “Massachusetts Playbook” newsletter, with its head reporter Kelly Garrity departing to the Boston Globe. POLITICO did not offer an explanation for the closure but reassured readers that they “will continue covering politics and policy in Washington and elsewhere.”  

Though it is not the only daily newsletter available to those with an interest in Massachusetts politics, the POLITICO newsletter was certainly one of the most well-read and will be missed. Its mix of state house news and reporting on Massachusetts’ delegation in Washington was unique and news about elections or political scandals was often first broken in POLITICO. It was well-read by political insiders and novices alike, spotlighting reporting from newspapers around the state for a wide audience. 

Closure of POLITICO #MApoli desk mirrors national trends as billionaires consolidate control of news 

This news unfortunately mirrors press-related stories nationwide. Just this month, The Washington Post laid off 300 reporters—a third of its total newsroom—including most of its local reporters covering the D.C. region. It was the latest in a series of disturbing management decisions by the Post’s multibillionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who has enough money to cover the paper’s annual losses for the next, uh, 2470 years. Meanwhile, legacy news outlet CBS News has lost staff and credibility as new owner, billionaire heir David Ellison, cozies up to Trump and narrows news coverage, including a recent blocked interview by Stephen Colbert. Big takeaway: when billionaires run the game, reporting suffers. 

Although we don’t know what’s behind POLITICO’s decision to end their Massachusetts coverage, it fits this unfortunately familiar pattern. In 2021, POLITICO was bought by German media conglomerate Axel Springer for $1 billion. Foreign Policy reported at the time that the company had a “decades-long record of bending journalistic ethics for right-wing causes.” In January of this year, POLITICO announced its first-ever layoffs, in conjunction with a shifting reporting focustowards markets and finance for “investment professionals.” 

An extensive academic study on this phenomenon found that the acquisition of a newspaper by an “investment owner” resulted in a shrinking of the paper’s staff by nine reporters or editors on average. When editorial decisions are driven by profit margins and the interests of billionaire investors, the quality and consistency of reporting declines, leaving behind “news deserts.” Back to our takeaway: when billionaires run the game, reporting suffers. 

But why are we talking about this in a Saturday Scoop? 

Well, in our fight for transparency, accountability, and democracy in Massachusetts, the press is one of our most essential allies. This dates back to our country’s founding: Thomas Jefferson argued in favor of the people’s right to “full information of [the government’s] affairs thro’ the channel of the public papers,”famously saying, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” 

Whether it’s reporters asking tough questions of elected officials in press conferences, undertaking deep investigations to expose corruption, or simply keeping us up-to-date every day, local journalism is one of the most important tools of transparency and accountability we have. 

For transparency and accountability, we need strong local state house coverage in Massachusetts 

The decline in regular state house reporting in Massachusetts is part and parcel of the story of declining transparency and efficiency at our state house. Many local newspapers in MA used to have full-time state house reporters who reported specifically on the actions of their delegations at Beacon Hill, adding additional scrutiny for electeds and keeping citizens informed. 

Yet, like most areas of the nation, Massachusetts has seen a shrinking number of local newspapers, driven by a shift to digital media and increasingly corporate governing structures. Many newspapers across the country were snapped up by the publishing hedge fund, Gannett, which ended print publication for 19 Massachusetts newspapers simultaneously in 2022. In reporting by WGBH on the decline of local papers, one expert said: "[when] a newspaper goes out of business, corruption goes up, fines go up, the government has to monitor these things to a greater degree, there's a cost to society.” 

Indeed, as local newspapers closed or reduced coverage, the number of desks filled in our state house’s press gallery has continued to dwindle. As of 2022, Massachusetts had just 17 full-time state house reporters, a number smaller than some states with part-time legislatures. The shrinking coverage has left readers dependent on larger publications like POLITICO for regular updates, leaving vulnerabilities when managerial decisions are made in corporate boardrooms far away from the state. And of course, with 200 full-time legislators and a governor’s office serving a population of over 7 million, those 17 reporters have their work cut out for them. 

The difficulty of sourcing quality information about what’s happening in our state government is one of the biggest reasons we write the Saturday Scoop every week. From Monday to Friday, we stockpile news stories from Beacon Hill (for a behind-the-scenes glance, check out this week’s “Scoop Clips” document!) We do our best to tease out the big stories, with a goal to make it easier for you to be an active citizen at the state level and to hold your own elected representatives accountable. 

While this usually includes an appeal to contact your representatives, I have a different plea for this week: support local news organizations! Local, independent coverage of what’s happening on Beacon Hill is an essential tool in our fight to keep the state house transparent, accountable, and democratic. As billionaire elites take an axe to the people’s press, there are hundreds of scrappy, independent news organizations in our state still churning out coverage and they need our support. 

One good example of what this local coverage can look like is the independent news outlet the New Bedford Light. Launched in 2021, the Light has a state house desk and publishes regular stories focused on New Bedford’s delegation to the state house, with stories like “How much progress did New Bedford’s legislators make in fall 2025?” Not only do these stories raise awareness for constituents, but reporters ask legislators to comment, setting up an expectation for sitting representatives that their community is checking up on them. 

For every subscription that you have to a legacy news organization like the New York Times, consider subscribing or making a donation to local political news in Massachusetts. A well-supported and effective press is our bulwark against authoritarianism in our democracy, whether it’s coming out of Washington or Beacon. Here's some ideas for getting started: 

And, of course, we’ll keep the Saturday Scoop coming out fresh every Saturday. As always, we welcome donations to Act on Mass to keep the Scoop free and timely. After all, unlike POLITICO or the Washington Post, we have no billionaire backers and we’re not going anywhere! 

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Immigration Spotlight

As the toll of the Trump administrations' violent immigration enforcement actions continue to be felt in Massachusetts and nationwide, we wanted to continue highlighting local stories of how this is impacting Bay Staters and share calls to action. 

Take Action

Our legislators need to stop stalling and take action to protect us from ICE. Please use our email form to contact your representative today. 

TELL YOUR REP: CO-SPONSOR PROTECT ACT>>

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Lily's Lowdown

Speed cameras: public safety breakthrough or surveillance nightmare?

After being stalled by legislative inertia for years, Massachusetts state leadership is picking up the threads on legislation to allow road cameras to catch speeding cars on Massachusetts roads. 

Although road cameras are “ubiquitous” in Massachusetts and regularly used by police for crime solving, state law currently bans their use for speed enforcement. Legislation to address this issue has repeatedly died on Beacon Hill. Taking a new tact, Governor Healey’s new FY2027 budget proposal (discussed last week) includes a provision to allow cities and towns to install speed cameras in school and construction zones. 

Another bill to address this is S.2344/H.3754 , An Act Relative to Traffic Regulation Using Road Safety Cameras, was introduced by ranking members of the Joint Committee on Transportation Senator William Brownsberger (Belmont) and Representative Steven Owens of Watertown last year. The Senate version was passed and has sat in Senate Ways & Means since July. The House version still has not received a vote. 

In 27 states, radar cameras track speeding vehicles and issue speeding tickets in the absence of a police officer. Advocates have been pushing for the instatement of speed-tracking cameras for years, particularly as fatal collisions continue to rise and Massachusetts cities remain some of the most collision-prone cities in the country. 

The cameras’ sensors detect speeds exceeding the posted limit by 11 miles per hour or more. The speeding vehicle is then captured either via photograph or video, which is sent to the jurisdiction to be evaluated by law enforcement, who issue the violation. The practice, in theory, would reduce the burden of traffic enforcement on local police and make communities safer from reckless driving.

But the issue is layered, and fraught with data privacy concerns. Part of the reason using the cameras for speed-tracking makes sense, Rep. Owens reasons, is because the infrastructure for it already exists; across Massachusetts, police departments use automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras to track license plates in a national database. Most of these AI-powered cameras are sourced from Flock Safety, a security hardware company. Although the company does not contract with ICE, Flock has faced heightened scrutiny because the data it captures with its cameras can be shared with ICE by local law enforcement. 

Somewhat promising is the language included in S.2344/ H.3754 that would ostensibly protect against data sharing from speed cameras with agencies like ICE. Below is language from the bill’s committee summary:

"Specifies that cameras shall not capture images unless a violation occurs and that such images are to be destroyed within 48 hours after the final disposition of a camera enforceable violation... Stipulates that photos and other personally identifiable information are not public records. Prohibits the camera system from capturing a front facing photo of the vehicle or its occupants, noting however, that no such photo shall be dismissed solely on the basis that it captures the vehicle’s occupants or contents."

The legislation, if passed, would also require municipalities to carry out a “public awareness campaign” to inform people of the speed camera installation. 

Advocates also worry that the technology could be weaponized against minority communities that already suffer overpolicing in Boston and across Massachusetts. Healey’s budget proposal, which is separate from the proposed legislation, does not include a requirement to report on racialized policing that may arise from use of the cameras. 

Still, the disconnect between the security apparatus of radar cameras all over the state and the fact that they are not used to discipline speeding drivers feels intuitively wrong. Without clear, specific measures, however, that bar local police departments—particularly those with 287(g) (information-sharing) agreements with ICE—it’s not hard to see how speed cameras might be deployed as a weapon of mass-surveillance.

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Missed a Scoop or two? You can find a full archive of all past Saturday Scoops on our blog.

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Thanks for reading! We'll be back next week. 

In solidarity,

Scotia

Scotia Hille (she/her)

Executive Director, Act on Mass