Frank was consistently accessible, ever quotable, always on the record, and honest to a fault.
Jack Sullivan
Jack Sullivan is now retired. A veteran of the Boston newspaper scene for nearly three decades. Prior to joining CommonWealth, he was editorial page editor of The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, a part of the GateHouse Media chain. Prior to that he was news editor at another GateHouse paper, The Enterprise of Brockton, and also was city edition editor at the Ledger. Jack was an investigative and enterprise reporter and executive city editor at the Boston Herald and a reporter at The Boston Globe.
He has reported stories such as the federal investigation into the Teamsters, the workings of the Yawkey Trust and sale of the Red Sox, organized crime, the church sex abuse scandal and the September 11 terrorist attacks. He has covered the State House, state and local politics, K-16 education, courts, crime, and general assignment.
Jack received the New England Press Association award for investigative reporting for a series on unused properties owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, and shared the association's award for business for his reporting on the sale of the Boston Red Sox. As the Ledger editorial page editor, he won second place in 2007 for editorial writing from the Inland Press Association, the nation's oldest national journalism association of nearly 900 newspapers as members.
At CommonWealth, Jack and editor Bruce Mohl won first place for In-Depth Reporting from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors for a look at special education funding in Massachusetts. The same organization also awarded first place to a unique collaboration between WFXT-TV (FOX25) and CommonWealth for a series of stories on the Boston Redevelopment Authority and city employees getting affordable housing units, written by Jack and Bruce.
Wastewater surveillance a proactive tool in stemming drug abuse
About 100 communities in the country are currently utilizing wastewater surveillance in some manner to identify high-risk drug use.
Union: Registry worker in Boston likely had COVID-19
THE REGISTRY OF MOTOR VEHICLES shut its Haymarket branch in Boston for the past week after an employee exhibited COVID-19 symptoms, according to union officials. An official with the National […]
Virus notes: Budget roundtable tripped up by livestream failure
IT WAS AN inauspicious start to the effort to reckon with the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on state revenue and the implications for the current fiscal year as […]
Virus notes: Unusually high amount of deaths in Franklin Cty
DATA FROM THE MASSACHUSETTS Department of Public Health indicate an unusually high number of COVID-19 fatalities are occurring in Franklin County. Three new deaths were reported in Friday’s report, bringing […]
SJC orders release of most defendants awaiting trial
THE STATE’S HIGHEST COURT Friday ordered nearly all people held in jails awaiting trial be released on their own recognizance because of the threat of COVID-19 infection. The unanimous opinion […]
Only 6 guards affected by ‘unauthorized memo’
AN UNAUTHORIZED and now rescinded memo initiating a moratorium on suspensions and disciplinary hearings for correction officers to ease staffing concerns during the current coronavirus crisis would have only affected […]
Biden spent nothing on Boston TV ads
THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL candidates spent $26.4 million on television advertising in the Boston market running up to the New Hampshire and Super Tuesday primaries this year, but the figure that […]
Is it time for a percent-for-art reboot?
NEARLY 40 YEARS AGO, when the new Porter Square Station on the MBTA’s Red Line opened, it meant more than just access to rapid transit for thousands of North Cambridge […]
UMass football thrown for big losses
WHEN THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS opted to enter major college football in 2012, officials pitched the idea that the program would pay for itself over time, even bolstering non-revenue sports […]
Commissioner abstains on most pot license votes
THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE for the state’s five-member Cannabis Control Commission is, arguably, its mandate to vote on granting recreational marijuana licenses, without which there can be no growing, manufacturing, […]
Stop trashing an affordable housing option
PEOPLE ARE BAD-MOUTHING my house. Well, not my house in particular – though it could use a few upgrades, truth be told – but the model itself. After a lifetime […]
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Since I came to CommonWealth nearly 10 years ago after a couple decades in the newspaper industry, I tell people there is not all that much difference. “I went from […]
Weather doesn’t dampen first day of pot sales
PARIS COLEMAN DIDN’T even know how to pronounce Leicester, and most assuredly had never visited the aging mill city in the northern Blackstone River Valley. But the 26-year-old New England […]
Boston to boom, west and Cape shrink by 2040
THE STATE IS to grow by more than 13 percent by the year 2040 but much of that increase will balloon in and around Boston, with households shrinking and the […]
Dukakis, Weld make last push for rail link
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNORS Michael Dukakis and William Weld made one more push for state officials to revisit their $12 billion cost estimates for a connector tunnel between South and North […]
The lamp is lit
MORE THAN TWO years after voters approved legal recreational marijuana sales and use, the doors of the first retail outlets east of the Mississippi will finally swing open on Tuesday […]
Globe all in on pot
IT’S A SMALL THING that few would initially notice but it says something loud. On the Boston Globe’s home page, just below the paper’s logo, is a list of categories […]
Airbnb sues Boston to halt regs
AIRBNB FILED SUIT against the city of Boston Tuesday seeking to block officials from implementing new regulations on short-term rentals set to take effect January 1, claiming the rules illegally […]
‘Big Marijuana’ is actually a thing
DURING THE 2016 CAMPAIGN, and since the passage of the law legalizing the sale and adult use of marijuana in Massachusetts, opponents of legal pot have continually pointed to the […]
Pot labs get green light
STATE REGULATORS GAVE the final okay for two cannabis testing labs to begin analyzing recreational marijuana, one of the last remaining steps before retail stores can open – more than […]
Election 2018: Coarse correction
The Blue Wave hit a Red Wall and though the splash soaked the barrier, it didn’t do the damage a tsunami would have brought. While Democrats celebrated their new-found ability to […]
Everybody talks about transportation
Mark Twain once famously observed, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” The irony is, of course, there’s nothing much you can do about it but […]
GOP’s Sen. Ross refuses to debate his opponent
IT’S A SCRIPT nearly every challenger in an election follows: Throw the gauntlet down for the incumbent to agree to a series of debates and then try to hold their […]
