New Editor Judith Pfeffer

Bob Sprague

During another slow slog home from working in Southborough, driving the Mass Pike, “a light bulb went on in my head,” says longtime Arlington resident Bob Sprague. 

It was 2006, midway through a two-year tenure as print and online copy editor of Network World. 

That bright idea spurred by a book about citizen journalism led to YourArlington -- 17 years later the last, best hope for residents to read the news about their town.

In July 2023, having established the site as a nonprofit with wide community involvement, he is stepping back from day-to-day duties, as YourArlington continues under Judith Pfeffer, the new editor.

ACMi News has won the Hometown Media Nationwide Award in the category of “news access” for the second consecutive year.

Arlington Community Media inc. (ACMi), Arlington’s community-access television studio and a YourArlington media partner, submitted a newscast from Nov. 11, 2022, anchored by James Milan and ACMi intern Summer Maxwell. The 2023 broadcast entry was edited by Jared Sweet.

Barnd

Haynes

Sprague

UPDATED April 21: The Friends of the Robbins Library hosted a moderated discussion, “Why All News is Local,” featuring Jeff Barnd of Arlington Community Media (ACMi), Crystal Haynes of Channel 25 News and Bob Sprague of YourArlington.com.

Attendees heard about the state of local news reporting and how the media landscape has changed over the past years and decades. Moderating the panel was Assistant Director of Libraries Amanda Troha.

This in-person program took place in the Community Room of the Robbins Library at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 12, 2023.

Preceding the presentation was the Friends’ annual general meeting, with remarks from board members and Director of Libraries Anna Litten.

ACMi has been contacting several former interns who’ve gone to bigger and better things in the TV news business.

Stephanie Wittenbach, a graduate of Emerson College, was an ACMi News intern in the fall of 2018. She now works for the ABC affiliate in Bangor, Maine, and we’re elated to hear she owes much of her success to what she absorbed here at ACMi.

See an interview with Jeff Barnd, ACMi news director.

Since March, ACMi News Director Jeff Barndt has been in touch with many people in Ukraine as that nation continues to be pounded by Vladimir Putin’s military might. We had the chance recently to talk to a journalist who is working overtime to report on the horrors of the Ukraine war.

His name is Anton Semyzhenko, a reporter working for Babel.ua, a Ukrainian news outlet reporting on the war. Anton also works to debunk anything coming from Russia’s state-run propaganda outlets. He tells us his nation, his culture, his world is at stake.

For other videos in this series, click here >> 

ACMi is a YourArlington media partner

ACMi News has won the Hometown Media Nationwide Award in the category of news access.

Arlington Community Media inc. (ACMi), Arlington’s community-access television studio and a YourArlington media partner, submitted a newscast from Oct. 15, 2021 – anchored by Paul Wehrlin and ACMi intern Nicole Garay.

The newscast featured a report by ACMi News Director Jeff Barnd about Arlington's participation in celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day, an area coyote attack and a follow-up interview by ACMi's Communications Manager James Milan with Arlington Police Chief Julie Flaherty, an interview with Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine regarding the town's ARPA framework, an APD Gun Buy-Back Program and an update on AHS events produced by ACMi Field Production Coordinator Anim Osmani.

The Arlington Advocate has been the town's paper of record ...."

                                                                                                            -- Town website

The weekly remains valuable as an archived, historical source,
not as a 'paper of record.'

UPDATED May 21: The Arlington Advocate, a storied weekly delivering news here since 1871, is no more. As of Thursday, May 12, it became the Advocate & Star, a newspaper merger of two highly distinct towns, Arlington and Winchester.

The demise began slowly after the Jorgensen family sold the paper in 1986 to Harte-Hanks, the first of many newspaper-chain owners. The Gannett Corp. of McLean, Va., is only the latest.

As editor of The Advocate in 1994-95, I saw the early decline firsthand. Not two months after I began, two men in dark suits arrived at 5 Water St., where the paper then was located, and measured the offices, without comment. Turns out, they were from Fidelity Investments, which included the paper in its many purchases later that fall. After that, the new owner cut the share it paid for employee health benefits.

To be fair, Fidelity supported the weekly. Sometimes the paper was 36 pages deep, had a full-time editor and reporter (Marc Levy, now of CambridgeDay.com) and a full-time sports editor (Walter Moynihan, who died in 2013). 

McLeod sees cable group going to court if measure adopted

UPDATED, Aug. 2: The Federal Communications Commission voted on rules Thursday, Aug. 1, that are expected to have a direct impact on ACMi, the cable-TV outlet in town.

The 3-2 vote aims to limit the benefits that communities get in return for the corporate use of public property. Read a report about the details >>

The Alliance for Community Media, a national group representing public-access cable stations, says the move will cost communities millions of dollars in fees to cable companies and opens the door to further action that may defund community public-access television in the future.

Panelists wrestle with current media issues as students yearn for print

From left are Claire Kitzmiller, Isabella Scopetski, Dave Denison, David Whitford, Heather Beasley Doyle, Abbi Matheson and Brenda Mahoney. / Susan Gilbert photo

UPDATED, Dec. 13: Arlington High School sponsored its first-ever journalism symposium Friday, Dec. 7.

Held in the school’s Old Hall, the forum provided an opportunity for students and staff, as well as town residents, to learn about journalism and how it’s changing in response to social media and our current political climate.

Time's Person of the Year: Guardians of the War on Truth

Approximately 150 people, mostly AHS students, attended the panel discussion, hosted by Claire Kitzmiller and Isabella Scopetski, members of the school’s journalism club.

Kitzmiller and Scopetski are also editors-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, the Ponder Page, an online publication.  Long known as The Ponder Report, the paper ended print production about 2011. However, students are making plans to print the newspaper again, a rare occurrence these days. “Claire made it our mission to change that,” said Scopetski. 

Leland Stein, co-owner of the Regent.

Arlington Community Media inc. (ACMi), Arlington’s community-access television studio, has honored Leland Stein, co-owner and manager of the Regent Theatre, with the 2018 Executive Director’s Choice Award.

This award recognizes those individuals who have dedicated themselves to creating and supporting the arts, and to developing a vibrant cultural environment in Arlington.

Stein was recognized for a long list of contributions to Arlington’s arts and culture scene. That includes providing residents with opportunities to see and hear distinguished artists, such as Mickey Rooney, Yo-Yo Ma and Odetta; to hosting film premieres, such as the 50th-anniversary reissues of “Singing in the Rain” and “The Seven Samurai,” as well as providing a venue for countless community and charity events from kids’ singalongs to fund-raisers for local nonprofits.

It was fitting that, on the night Stein received this award, just two blocks away the Regent, a cultural icon in Arlington since 1916, was presenting a rousing stage version of “Jesus Christ Superstar” to a full house, with the actor who played Jesus in the 1973 film on hand.

Stein has been in charge of the Regent for 16 years, and he and his team have been responsible for revitalizing the 100-year-old theater. In so doing, they have booked, promoted and hosted an impressive number of groups, individual acts and movies, all of which have now become part of Arlington’s cultural heritage.

Chang

Arlington Community Media inc. (ACMi) has hired a new production and media coordinator, Katie Chang.

Although new to this full-time position, Chang has been a member of the ACMi team for more than two years. Joining the Arlington cable-TV station in 2016 as an intern with an eight-year background in science, but a lifelong passion for digital media, she quickly impressed with her maturity and how quickly she achieved a sure grasp of the technical aspects of video production, a Feb. 16 news release says.

Chang made a smooth transition from intern to part-time employee at ACMi, providing steady guidance to a host of member-producers and developing a thorough command of the lighting, editing and sound components so vital to in-studio production and field shoots.

She also mastered many elements of website management, graphic design and social-media communications. Chang brings to her new position all of those skills, plus an unflappable approach to troubleshooting.