Net neutrality is a simple concept: All data are created equally. Or, at least, should be treated equally. It means, at its base, TimeWarner, Verizon, Comcast, or some other broadband […]
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.
Ethics Commission revises conflict law
State Sen. Dan Wolf can keep his day job. The State Ethics Commission today finalized a change in regulations that will allow officials at the state and local level who […]
Clearing the Cops: Additional Information
« Return to “Clearing the cops” Winter 2014 cover story [themify_button style=”large red rounded” link=”https://commonwealthbeacon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Deadly-force-table.xlsx” ]Download Sortable Data about Specific Cases[/themify_button] Of the 73 people on the list, 56 […]
How the data were gathered
It wasn’t easy assembling the data for this report. No one agency or office compiles a comprehensive list of instances when police use deadly force, so CommonWealth gathered the information […]
Clearing the cops
FROM THE TINY TOWN of Colrain at the Vermont border to the siren-pierced streets of Boston, state and local police have shot and killed 73 people across Massachusetts over the […]
Pumped over gas tax
When the Massachusetts Legislature voted last year to raise the gas tax by 3 cents to 26.5 cents per gallon and allow the tax to rise automatically in future years […]
Chris Christie’s bridge to nowhere
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been touting his image as a bridge to bipartisanship in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The bridge, it seems, has collapsed. We […]
The dawn of Obamacare
Now, the rubber hits the road. As of today, millions of Americans will begin getting health coverage under the Affordable Care Act and over the next few months, we’ll find out which […]
The authority to make changes on the way out
As Mayor Thomas Menino prepares for life after the throne, his crown could become somewhat tarnished as the piñata that is the Boston Redevelopment Authority continues to take a near-daily […]
Getting to yes, turning to no
Yes, yes, and yes. Those are the answers developers give communities when they want to get approval for their projects. But once those projects are underway, it seems, the deals […]
A taxing time of year
It’s that time of year again. Well, yeah, it’s holiday season, but it’s also the time of year that many cities and towns set their property tax rates. The exercise […]
A costly reminder of a college degree
The bills are all in now and the average debt for college graduates from the Class of 2012 is nearly $30,000. And, with no end in sight on tuition increases […]
Dookhan gets 3-5 years
Annie Dookhan quietly admitted she tampered with evidence and falsified documents that potentially affected tens of thousands of drug cases in Massachusetts before being led away in handcuffs to spend […]
Up in smoke?
It’s kind of hard to say there’s a chasm between voters and politicians in deciding what’s best for the state, given that the voters put these folks into office and […]
The first breach of the Obamacare fortress?
There have been other changes already made in the Affordable Care Act , a.k.a. Obamacare, such as delaying the employer mandate for a year and freeing religious organizations from providing […]
Buddy, can you spare a quarter — million?
The 1 percent lost a little footing last year in the state’s workforce. According to records, the number of state employees earning more than $250,000 a year dropped from 72 […]
The Xs and Os guy
What prompted you to come here from Notre Dame and attempt to elevate UMass’s football program? Well, like every assistant coach, I had dreams and goals to become a head […]
A check on bad student loan debt
Last year, federal education officials did something they almost never do: They wrote off more than $3 million in student loan debt belonging to nearly 500 students. Short of dying […]
Meet the press — somewhere else
For decades, whoever occupied the third-floor corner office at the State House would hop into the elevator outside his (or, in the case of Gov. Jane Swift, her) suite to […]
A troubling transit trend line
State officials are seeking to expand commuter rail and extend the Green Line even as ridership figures indicate suburbanites are slowly abandoning the existing public transit options available to them. […]
Darwin rolls the dice
Now that the dust is settling, you have to wonder when it comes to casino permits: What the heck do we need a Gaming Commission for? There’s a sort of […]
Taking stock: Election ’13
Mr. Personality Politics is a world of debating points and policy papers and voter turnout machines, but it’s also a world where personal relationships matter greatly. Marty Walsh stormed into […]
A change in ethics
The State Ethics Commission on Monday proposed making it easier for business owners to run for or hold public office in Massachusetts, allowing executives to retain their stake in a […]
Obama: Every little thing’s gonna be alright
With the Red Sox sucking all the oxygen out of the news cycle in these parts, it might have been a little hard to notice other things going on yesterday, […]
