Lights Out Mass

Todd Wallack, an investigative journalist with more than two decades of experience in the media, started out in a small Ohio newsroom, later rose to the famed Spotlight team at The Boston Globe, and then moved to WBUR. Wallack’s name is synonymous with public records reporting in Massachusetts. His work has led to numerous precedent-setting lawsuits against government agencies that tried to keep information — like the names of police officers arrested for drunk driving — from the public.For the ninth episode of Lights Out Mass, we nerd out with Wallack about his never-ending quest to reveal stories that officials would prefer to keep hidden, the confusing Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law that has allowed police and prosecutors to conceal information about police misconduct and data about the legal system, why striking the right balance between privacy and transparency often means disclosure, and the link between the Spotlight team and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtainOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

On November 22, 2021, Fall River police officer Chelsea Campellone shot and killed 30-year-old Anthony Harden in his bedroom. Since then, Harden’s brother, Eric Mack, has been fighting for access to the investigative records that could shed some light on what happened that night.For the eighth episode of Lights Out Mass, we talk with Mack about his lingering questions and suspicions about the shooting, his lawsuit to force the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office to release more records, the important ramifications the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s interpretation of a 2020 police reform law will have for transparency of police shootings and misconduct in the state, the DA’s strained arguments for its secrecy, and why it’s OK to hate (some) lawyers.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: eric-macks-fight-for-police-transparencyOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

The seventh episode of Lights Out Mass is just in time for Banned Books Week!We talk about how libraries are awesome, Jeff’s new project to uncover all book challenges at public libraries and schools throughout Massachusetts, how bigots — including Rayla Campbell, the former Mass GOP candidate for secretary of the commonwealth — have been using concerns about protecting children from sexual abuse as cover for their bigotry, and proposed legislation that would ban book bans.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/banned-books-weekOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Lights Out Mass is a podcast about government transparency — or the lack thereof — in Massachusetts. Hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of MassTransparency.For the sixth episode, we speak with Nathan Story, the programmer and records aficionado behind State Reference — a huge, searchable collection of Massachusetts public records that will soon prove to be an indispensable resource for journalists and researchers.We discuss Nathan’s old project, Woke Windows, and how it led him to conceive State Reference, the importance of machine-readable text and other seemingly stodgy technical details, how Nathan used web scraping to amass his huge collection of documents, why journalists should show their work, why it’s so goddamn annoying when cities and towns don’t post their email addresses online — and how Andrew is very envious that Jeff and Nathan are playing Baldur’s Gate 3.Stick around at the end for a bonus discussion of MassCourts.org, the infamously infuriating website for state trial-court records.(Sorry about the issue with Nathan’s audio quality. We fixed it a few minutes into the podcast, so please don’t let it scare you off!)If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/100k-documents-and-countingOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Lights Out Mass is a podcast about government transparency — or the lack thereof — in Massachusetts. Hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of Mass Transparency.For the fifth episode of Lights Out Mass, we discuss the Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission’s new statewide database of complaints against police officers, how the commission left out most of the data, and cohost Jeff Raymond’s tireless efforts to release the full data using the state public records law.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/the-incredible-shrinking-post-databaseOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Lights Out Mass is a podcast about government transparency — or the lack thereof — in Massachusetts. Hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of Mass Transparency.For the fourth episode of Lights Out Mass, we speak with Luke O’Neil, the independent journalist behind the bleak, irreverent, and hilarious newsletter Welcome to Hell World. We discuss the death of DigBoston (and local journalism in general), what’s new in Hell World, O’Neil’s new short story collection, and his love for the band R.E.M.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/we-might-actually-be-living-in-hellOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Lights Out Mass is a podcast about government transparency — or the lack thereof — in Massachusetts. Hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of Mass Transparency.The third episode is all about Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and her approach to public records requests. Although the governor is exempt from the public records law, Healey said shortly before taking office that she would comply with it anyway. However, that promise didn’t last long. Laugh along with us as we listen to Healey try to explain her, uh... evolution on this issue. We also discuss proposed legislation that would fix this flaw in the law.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/governor-healey-and-public-recordsOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Lights Out Mass is a podcast about government transparency — or the lack thereof — in Massachusetts. Hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of Mass Transparency.In our second episode, we interview journalist Laura Kiesel about the importance of remote access to public meetings for people with disabilities and the difficulties she’s encountered when requesting accommodations from Arlington, the town where she lives. We also discuss proposed legislation that would require hybrid meetings and the opposition from local officials, who say they prefer “flexibility” to “mandates.”If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/remote-access-to-public-meetingsOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com

Welcome to Lights Out Mass — a new podcast about government transparency in Massachusetts hosted by Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump and Jeff Raymond of Mass Transparency.In our first episode, we introduce ourselves, talk about how public records can be used to investigate police misconduct, and weigh in on whether Donald Trump’s criminal trials should be televised.If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscibe for future episodes! You can find us on Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.You can find links discussed in this podcast here: https://andrewqmr.substack.com/p/podcast-introducing-lights-out-massOur theme music is “Sun Bleach” by Lifeformed. Music available here: https://lifeformed.bandcamp.com/album/fastfallSunlight is the best disinfectant! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit andrewqmr.substack.com