Rescuing Statehouse Reporting

As the head of COM’s Statehouse Program, Jerry Berger helps fill an important gap in Massachusetts’ political coverage

Halftone composite image of the Massachusetts Statehouse and professor Jerry Berger.

Photo in illustration: W. Marc Bernsau

October 28, 2022
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Rescuing Statehouse Reporting

Massachusetts Statehouse reporting looks a lot different to Jerry Berger today than it did when he was a reporter on Beacon Hill in the mid ’80s and early ’90s. Berger, a lecturer in journalism at Boston University’s College of Communication, worked for the news service United Press International (UPI) where he rose to Statehouse bureau chief and covered some of then-governor Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. 

“I would cover all aspects of state government and we had a robust bureau. We would write a weekly column, we had a lively, interested publication base and it was a lot of fun,” says Berger, who heads COM’s Statehouse Program, which provides students—mostly seniors and graduate students—the opportunity to report on politics for more than 15 news outlets around Massachusetts, including the Attleboro Sun-Chronicle, Cape Cod Times, Brockton Enterprise and Provincetown Independent. 

There is a move afoot for really hyperlocal news outlets, and that’s a good thing. It’s just a question of can they find the resources.

Jerry Berger

“When I worked in the Statehouse, virtually every publication that we now provide coverage to through the Statehouse Program had their own Statehouse reporter,” Berger says. UPI and the Associated Press (AP) each had four reporters on Beacon Hill. Today, the AP has just one and most of the state’s local papers have eliminated theirs because of budget cuts. In fact, COM’s Statehouse Program is now the largest news operation covering the Statehouse. Berger sees the program as filling a critical gap in the journalism landscape. “When you stop covering government, elected officials can get away with a lot more,” he says.

Berger spoke with COMtalk about his reporting days, his goals for the Statehouse program, covering the upcoming midterm election, the future of local journalism and more.

Q&A

With Jerry Berger

COMtalk: How is the Statehouse Program organized?

Jerry Berger: The Statehouse Program is actually two courses. The first is JO 511: Covering Government and Politics. We go over what you would need to know if you’re covering government as a beat. We talk about objectivity, social media and this year I brought in guest speaker Samantha J. Gross (’18), an alum of the Statehouse Program and a political reporter for the Boston Globe, to talk about what she does. I’ll also bring in someone to talk about polls and someone to talk about budgets, elections, lobbying and all that. Then we have JO 546: Statehouse Program, which is the class that involves actual reporting. Students use the Statehouse as a foundation for reporting for regional news outlets. We literally cover from Pittsfield to Provincetown.

COMtalk: Do student assignments come from you or from the publications that they’re assigned to work with?

Jerry Berger: They come from both me and the editors of their publications. There’s an organization called the Statehouse News Service, which covers the building stem to stern. They put out a list of things that are coming up for the week. In class, we’ll go through that list and I’ll suggest possible story ideas, and then they’ll try and tailor the pitch for their local editor. The editor can say “Sure, fine, go ahead,” or “No, do this instead.”

Students don’t have to just write about what the legislature has done. I like to think of this as covering public affairs. So it can be education, health care, arts and culture, transportation, you name it. If the editor wants something specific, we’re more than happy to oblige. The student writes the story, they come back to me for editing, then an edited version goes out to the editors for their use.

COMtalk: What’s the overarching goal of the program?

Jerry Berger: The number one question people want to know in terms of government is: where are their tax dollars being spent? Getting that information out has become a real problem, especially with the growth of news deserts.

COMtalk: What led to your passion for Statehouse reporting?

Jerry Berger: I’ve always been a political junkie. My first job was for a daily paper in Marlborough, Mass., called the Marlborough Enterprise. We also published a paper in the town of Hudson. And because I’d always had an interest in this kind of stuff, I would see something going on on Beacon Hill, and I would call the state rep from Marlborough and call the state rep from Hudson—happily, for my purposes, one was a Democrat and one was a Republican, so I got both perspectives. Then I would call the state senator who covered both towns. From there, I went to UPI. As my career progressed, I went from someone who thought covering public policy was a price I had to pay for covering politics, to covering politics was the price I had to pay for covering policy. 

COMtalk: With the 2022 midterm elections coming up, what are your students paying particular attention to? 

Jerry Berger: I want them to think a little bit outside the box. We’re of course going to cover the ballot questions and people running for office. I also have a number of international students, and I would love for them to take on topics like “How are American politics being viewed in the international community?” “What is a threat to democracy? Is [the threat] real?” Those are the kinds of things I’d like them to cover beyond standard political reporting. I’ve called myself a recovering political reporter—I’ve made all the mistakes that have been made, focusing too much on money and polls and not enough on the issues. That’s one of the reasons why we’re in this [political climate], because political journalism hasn’t done its job.

COMtalk: As local news outlets close and news deserts form, how does this program help?

Jerry Berger: The bulk of the publications our students work with are regional dailies, including the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and the MetroWest Daily News. These were all once thriving newspapers that each had their own Statehouse people. Most of the publications we work with, with the exception of the Berkshire Eagle, Attleboro’s Sun Chronicle, the Daily Hampshire Gazette from Northampton, the Provincetown Independent, CommonWealth, and Boston Business Journal are Gannett owned. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a cycle: You stop covering local news, and people aren’t going to want to buy it. The Berkshire Eagle is a very good example of what happens when you get back into local ownership. They were a superb newspaper that hit the skids and then they were bought by a big media company. But more recently, they were bought again, this time by a group of local investors, and now they’re thriving. 

COMtalk: What gives you hope for the future of local journalism?

Jerry Berger: There is a growth now of new, online hyperlocal outlets. The New Bedford Light is a wonderful example of that. It’s maybe a year old or so. Concord just launched a paper called the Concord Bridge. CommonWealth is one of the hyperlocal publications we partner with through the Statehouse Program, and it provides some good coverage. So, there is a move afoot for really hyperlocal news outlets, and that’s a good thing. It’s just a question of can they find the resources, mainly the financial ones, to be able to pull it off? It’s definitely encouraging.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Student Clips

COM’s Statehouse Program is now the largest news organization working in the Massachusetts Statehouse. Students report for local papers across the commonwealth, covering politics and policy. Here’s a sampling of their recent work.