INCSpot

By Dorie Clark

Press conferences used to be the ultimate showdown—newsmaker vs. reporter, mano-a-mano, cage-match style. But in recent years, they’ve become a paltry wisp of their former selves. Nowadays, you’re more likely to get political candidates scrambling off a bus with their pre-fabricated legions of sign-holding interns, hitting the steps of City Hall for a nice photo op—and giving a rousing speech to one reporter, some pigeons, and a homeless dude nearby (the exact scenario Boston Magazine teased Charlie Baker about during his recent “Had Enough?” bus tour)

By Daisy Gómez
Daisy Gómez is a licensed Social Worker at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and MassINC Associate Board Member.

Every day, I see the direct impact health care polices have on the public.  In my work, I support parents of children diagnosed with cancer as they wrestle with a multitude of concrete needs amidst the challenges of caring for a child with a life-threatening illness.

By John Schneider

Our colleagues at the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings have released a new report about how the top 100 metro areas are doing in boosting U.S. exports across the globe.  Why does it matter?  Because, according to Brookings, increasing the nation’s export capacity is a sure path to stronger job growth.

The MassINC Associate Board and AmeriCorps Alums Boston Chapter today released a White Paper outlining the background and policy goals for their joint State of Service initiative.  The initiative builds off the hugely successful Cities of Service program, a bipartisan coalition of 101 mayors around the country who are working to develop comprehensive city-wide service plans and engage their citizens in solving local problems.

By Michael Jonas

What to do with Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway?

By Ben Timmins

There’s a line from an episode of SuperNews, the satire cartoon on the cable network Current, which comes to mind whenever I talk about Twitter. The main character, frustrated with having to listen to people’s messages about minute and boring details, eventually cracks. “Twitter is nothing more than shouts into the darkness hoping someone is listening!” he says.

By Ben Timmins

It comes as no surprise that the national media is painted as having a liberal slant: a Google search for the terms “liberal media” nets 990,000 results, and critics have long blasted the media for supporting liberal causes. One would expect, then, that an industry facing financial turmoil would look to a traditionally liberal solution: government intervention. If recent backlash to a Federal Trade Commission report is any indication, that assertion couldn’t be more wrong.

By Stephanie J.  Anderson

It’s been 26 days since my central air conditioning conked out. What started out as a case of home repair procrastination has become a personal energy challenge: can I slash my electricity use with an A/C-free summer?

By Ben Forman

The Colonial Theater had been dark for over 50 years when the City of Pittsfield bet that bringing it back to life would make a bold statement about the community’s future. We met recently with leaders from the across Western Massachusetts to learn about what Pittsfield has achieved since successfully reopening the theater in 2006, and how that could be applied to other Gateway Cities and regions looking to grow the creative economy.

By Dorie Clark

I don’t need to rule the whole planet—just the Globe. The Boston Globe, that is. As a former journalist, it’s a favorite parlor game among my media-savvy friends: What would we do to stop the freefall and inject a little mojo back into New England’s paper of record? Purging myself of sentimentality and whipping out the green eyeshades, here are my solutions: