Jennifer Smith writes for CommonWealth Beacon and co-hosts its weekly podcast, The Codcast. Her areas of focus include housing, social issues, courts and the law, and politics and elections.
A California native who also lived in Utah, Jennifer has covered Massachusetts since 2011 for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon bomber trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer was a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development.
Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.
Was a vote to seize Northeastern University land for conservation in ‘bad faith’?
AG sues towns flouting MBTA Communities law
What Mass. can and can’t do about ICE
What’s behind Massachusetts’s $250m investment in health insurance subsidies
Prospects shaky for real estate transfer fee
Inclusionary zoning takes fire from developers, gets side-eye from YIMBYs
Five Codcasts from 2025
Our top five housing stories of 2025
Talk of new transportation dollars? Bring it on, says Senate chair
MBTA Communities fight heads back to the SJC
A push to build housing in ‘God’s backyard’
AG’s suit against Meta hits the SJC
A third tilt at the windmill for Wu’s tax shift
Ballot measures must clear courts, lawmakers, and voters
‘They’re making a huge bet’: Rent control referendum splits progressives
Bar advocate work stoppage becomes an SJC separation-of-powers conundrum
SJC considers whether charter schools must obey public records laws
Four Supreme Judicial Court cases to watch in November
Boston housing permitting lags as residents express support for zoning changes
Planning for wildfire risk a puzzle for homeowners, Mass. officials
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