News Media

Rising tide floods a city

Politics This Week: High Tide for Special Interests

By Justin Katz | February 19, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss unions, immigration, infrastructure, borrowing, and other ways special interests profit from government.

An old man contemplates a pit expanding to consume a city

Politics This Week: Distracted by Disaster

By Justin Katz | February 5, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz lament the lack of focus on the basics in RI government and media.

Sketch of Disaster Dan Sitcom

Politics This Week: RI’s Undeclared Disaster

By Justin Katz | January 15, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz go over the slow-rolling perpetual disaster of RI politics and government.

Reporter shocked at 19th Century public meeting

A Central Landfill meeting gives a sense of what’s being lost from media.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2024 |

Considering how frequently I criticize professional journalists, I may too infrequently convey how powerful I think their role can (and should) be.  A recent Johnson Sunrise article by Rory Schuler, about the resignation/retirement of Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC) Executive Directo Joseph Reposa, is an excellent example of what we’re losing.  Without making a gooey…

A water drop and ripples

Progressives took over academia and journalism to rewrite facts and history.

By Justin Katz | January 4, 2024 |

I wondered, the other day, whether young Americans are so much ignorant of history as they are indifferent to the truth.  Here’s another shocking datapoint in that set: Following the trail of links suggests that the culprit is not ignorance or, for that matter, indifference.  This is part of an approach.  A filmmaker (presumably of…

A bridge on fire

Politics This Week: RI’s Bridge to Self Awareness

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review the moments of clarity following the Washington Bridge fiasco.

A dragon cradles three journalists

Yes, the Cicilline-run Rhode Island Foundation “investing” in journalism should be controversial.

By Justin Katz | December 5, 2023 |

It’s strange to note, but Providence Journal political reporter Kathy Gregg got some heat from others in the local media (specifically from the Boston Globe) for writing this: The political flap erupted a week after Cicilline – a leader in the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump – told the Boston Globe and more recently a…

A water drop and ripples

URI polling shows a schizophrenic public.

By Justin Katz | December 5, 2023 |

Ian Donnis tweeted, in October, some poll results from the University of Rhode Island that raise an perennially interesting point: Note that “most respondents favor increased state-level spending on education, housing, infrastructure, and aid to the poor.  73% want government “investment” in “blue economy initiatives like offshore wind.”  Yet, those with “a great deal” or…

A water drop and ripples

I wouldn’t claim to have a direct solution for Rhode Island’s early intervention programs.

By Justin Katz | November 20, 2023 |

But I have to wonder: as these groups come forward demanding more money, is anybody — whether journalists or state agencies — investigating the services that are being provided, the mandates imposed on the providers, or the nuts and bolts of the organizations providing them? Such stories typically evince no trace of skepticism about the…

A water drop and ripples

Hamas journalists raise (and answer) a classic question of journalistic ethics.

By Justin Katz | November 9, 2023 |

The other day, I wondered whether younger folks have any sense of how long-standing is the problem of the huge gray area between journalists within the Palestinian territories (and elsewhere in the Middle East) and the terrorist organizations they’re covering.  Whether or not they’re more like terrorist propagandists is a gray area the terrorists have…