By Stephen Brophy
The Fenway News started back in 1974 as part of the community’s response to a form of destruction known as “urban renewal.” Back then the Boston Redevelopment Authority would huddle with the biggest institutions to plan for the “improvement” of the neighborhood, and input from the people who actually lived here was neither solicited nor listened to.
Given the David-and-Goliath nature of the struggle, it made a certain emotional sense for the nascent paper to adopt the motto “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” as an all-purpose statement of principle. But that motto does not really fit the situation we are in now or the different way we are trying to work for our community. So as of this issue you will no longer find it on our nameplate. We have moved it to this page and may decide to permanently drop it. What do you think?
The phrase has an interesting history. It apparently traces to a 19th-century Chicago newspaper columnist, Finley Peter Dunne. He wrote: “Th newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.” It’s pretty obvious that Dunne had satirical intent here, and that he was satirizing the inflated self-assessment of his fellow journalists. Later newspaper people, like H. L. Mencken, took the slogan as a serious mission statement.
Our situation as residents of a city dealing with the government and our neighboring institutions has changed quite a bit since the 1970s. We have a lot more opportunity to participate in the decisions made about our surroundings. (There is, of course, always room for improvement.) And we have several decades of history of working with the leaders of the institutions around us to fashion solutions to problems that allow both sides to benefit. Back in the day the other side had to lose for us to win, but that’s no longer the case.
We will still speak up whenever we hear about powerful people trying to put something over on those who have less power. See, for example, our page 1 article about the threat to affordable housing subsidies on Burbank Street. But we also work hard to be a newspaper/website that allows all the voices in the neighborhood to be heard.
Nearly all of our content is generated by volunteers, writing about things that interest or affect them. You can also expect to see articles about what’s going on at Northeastern or MassArt or the Christian Science Church that are written by representatives of those organizations, like the Berklee scholarships article, also on page 1. Expect also, from time to time, to see other articles that disagree with them. We are all neighbors hoping to maximize our use and enjoyment of the community we share. We will disagree often, but we will try to minimize the afflicting of one side by the other, and aim for the comfort of all.
We can better aim for a win win community and when we face hardships such as we face today an economy faltering, people losing their homes, losing jobs, businesses going under, most folk in debt…I like the following as you mentoned in the last part of the article for a slogan for FN:
” We are all neighbors hoping to maximize our use and enjoyment of the community we share.”
Posted by Valarie Seabrook | September 4, 2010, 11:56 pmSome people have sent in comments to this editorial by email. As I get permission to make these comments public, I’ll be posting them here. This one’s from Jon Ball:
Hi All,
So do we keep the slogan? We need to remember a bit more history here. From the time our paper started, it was a voice in the struggle over the right of ordinary, non-wealthy people to live in a nice place, an urban neighborhood coveted by others for its proximity to the finest cultural and educational opportunities the world offers. That’s why we fought speculators and condo converters, as well as institutional expansion. The slogan declared our answer, that EVERYONE had the right to live here.
So that struggle was eventually lost. The rich folks won; the tenants whom I met when they came in panicked to our STOP office on Burbank Street are long gone. Ordinary working folks now have no right to live in this or any other big city. There is resistance though, a growing international ‘Right to the City Movement’, and I would hope the Fenway News would take its honorable place there as that movement grows. Small things, like the decision of whether or not to print a slogan, have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophesies, guides to future conduct.
The slogan is, most of all, a reminder to ourselves that we have a responsibility to participate in fighting for democratic access to nice places like the Fenway. America, and Boston especially, are rapidly becoming a nation of a fortunate few, and an increasingly pauperized vast majority. This will be the defining issue of our times in Boston, and the fight will sharpen in the coming years. It will be in our faces everyday, pretty soon. I see the fallout already everyday in my work with Boston Public Schools students.
Personally, I always wrote for the Fenway News because it stood for something, because it didn’t hide that fact, and because what it stood for was consistent with what I cared about, and with what motivated my work with Boston Public Schools students.
I have already left the Fenway, moved to JP, retired from the FN Board, and haven’t even written an article in ages. So I can’t threaten to resign from the Board or stop writing stories if the slogan goes, because I already left. But having been deeply involved with the paper 1986-2010, I am pretty certain that were I still on the Board and/or still writing regularly for the paper, I would declare my intentions to resign from the Board and to find other outlets for my journalistic efforts, should this change go through.
Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on this matter.
Jon Ball
Posted by Stephen Brophy | September 7, 2010, 12:19 amI was a volunteer for the Fenway News years ago, when we decided to put “comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable” on the front page.
At that time, Fenway residents needed a voice. A voice to afflict the comfortable when Fenway tenants organized against lousy housing conditions, high rents, arson for profit, displacement, racial discrimination, and institutional expansion. . . and when we worked together on concerns that went beyond the Fenway – like gay pride, women’s rights, AIDS, good jobs, and effective electoral representation. A voice to comfort the afflicted when wonderful things happened, like the Edgerly Road Playground, St. Cecelia’s House, 110 Peterborough St, and the Mission Hill-Fenway Neighborhood Trust. . . when we came together to build and strengthen community institutions that continue to grow, like Fenway Community Health Center, and ones that are now gone, like the Mission Hill-Fenway Food Coop. . . and when we performed and enjoyed music, writing, paintings, dance and other arts. And it’s worth noting that the slogan never limited what the Fenway News covered.
At that time, everyone was a volunteer — we wrote for the paper, got the advertising, and did everything needed to get it printed and distributed. I think that’s mostly been true throughout the Fenway News’ history. In our cases, a key reason we volunteered our time was because it was so difficult to get coverage for crucial community issues from the Globe, the Herald, other papers, radio, and TV. To put a finer point on it, our experience was that the hardest things to get coverage for had to do with comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.
We chose to put the slogan that is now in question on the front page it to make it clear that crucial community issues would get coverage. And it’s fair to say that it helped to recruit volunteers to write about those issues.
What about today, and what about the future? It may be that the lack of jobs so many people face isn’t tearing at the Fenway community. Or maybe it’s getting plenty of coverage. It may be that news and analysis of changing property values, who’s being forced to sell, who’s buying, and the impact of both on the Fenway’s tenants and homeowners isn’t important. Or maybe other media are digging deep to do stories on it. It may be that efforts for fairness, equality, rights, and justice involving Fenway residents are getting the coverage they need and deserve. It may be that Fenway residents can easily find out about the community’s successes and benefits. However, it may be that only the Fenway News can provide a voice for the Fenway on issues like these. I encourage the Fenway News Board to consider which alternative it is.
I’m writing because I lived in the Fenway for twenty years and I put a lot of time into the Fenway News. But I’ve lived in Roslindale for the last fourteen years, so all I can to do is to share a bit of the paper’s history, ask a question about whether things have changed, and express a hope. I hope the Fenway News will continue to tell the stories of what Fenway residents do to take on the challenges they face. And that it keeps celebrating the neighborhood’s successes and publicizing its many benefits – especially so those for whom things are tough will know. In short, I hope it will continue comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable – and that it will keep those words on the front page, where they have been for so many years.
Jack Mills
Posted by Jack Mills | September 7, 2010, 2:01 pmHere’s another comment from one of Fenway News’s founders – Chris Tilly:
I certainly feel a twinge of nostalgia to learn this news, but I wouldn’t say I am heartbroken. The terrain of struggle changes, communities change, and publications change. I was on the editorial collective of Dollars & Sense magazine (which coincidentally also was founded in 1974, and still survives) when we decided to remove the word “socialist” from our masthead in the mid-1990s. I initially was skeptical, but when I heard all the younger collective and staff members who had joined in the previous few years, all strongly committed to social and economic justice and fiercely critical of capitalism, saying “This word doesn’t speak to me and my friends,” it seemed clear what the right decision was. In the same way, I trust the board of the Fenway News to make this decision, the moreso since Stephen was “present at the creation” and understands well the motivation of the slogan, as his editorial attests.
Posted by Stephen Brophy | September 7, 2010, 2:28 pmMany of the comments on the Fenway News motto seem to be focused on an assumption that the paper may be abandoning its values. I believe nothing could be further from the truth. My concern is that after 35 years, its meaning may no longer be clear. Today, too many Fenway residents are either baffled or offended by it, without the history to remind them – as other have pointed out – that in an era of rampant housing loss, including a shameful series of arsons for profit, it was the clear, unambiguous voice of the Fenway News that told the community not only what was happening, but who was responsible. In that day, it was easy to see who was afflicted and who was comfortable. Today, not so easy. If you are a home owner in the neighborhood, are you the comfortable? A number of people think so. Is that what we mean?
My question to the founders is – are you committed to the words – or to their meaning? If the latter, I urge Fenway News supporters to think hard about what our mission is, as we and the community are evolving. The paper will always be the voice of the community. It aims in the future to develop into a true community forum, where ideas and events that impact our neighborhood get examined and discussed. We have the chance, with the paper going on-line to reach an audience that becomes a force for positive change, always in the direction of social justice. I suggest that the next step is pulling our collective wisdom together to come up with a statement of purpose and to publish it prominently in every issue.
Jack and Jon: Thank you very much for reminding us where we come from. I hope you will also help us figure out where we are going. We need your history and wisdom. And let’s keep this dialogue going.
Posted by Joyce Foster | September 9, 2010, 5:14 pmI think/hope we can all agree that the “comforting the afflicted” part of the motto is not the issue in question. Given the ideological make-up of the newspaper’s board & membership I really don’t see that mission being challenged or in imminent danger.
The issue is the second part of the motto – what/who are we defining as ‘the comfortable’ that we’re purporting to afflict? Clearly “comfortable” is a completely subjective & relative term that has different meanings to different people & has proven to be both an asset & a liability to the paper over the years. It has drawn many readers to the paper for its plucky spirit and repelled many others who felt they were the ones being targeted (justified or not).
Call me unprincipled but personally I’ll continue to read, enjoy & support the paper through whatever decision is reached.
Posted by Steve Chase | September 9, 2010, 8:04 pmPeople want to be informed and ahead of the cure of issues, events, know how and facts that help them make informed choices. That is what we are and have been about–I have volunteered as a photographer on and off with the Fenway News for about sixteen years maybe more. I have read above comments fondly remember Jon and Jack and really miss you both. having said that know we can do a fews things as I see it: 1) continue to be a watchful eye for our needs and wants in the community in reporting. 2)tap into our current readers interest, concerns, deisres. 3)keep an eye on the prize in print and on line issues/post to grow, be competive and viable in the newspaper on line markets. I sell ad P/T I need to see more reason to sell that what we have at present. Are we selling out? No we are growing and the birth pains are present. Let’s let the times define our boundry lines we are in charge to soem extent, let us always have back bone but as a palm tree be flexible to remain alive.
Hugs to you all that have moved on and your voices mean a lot to us, keep in touch.
Posted by Valarie Seabrook | September 10, 2010, 2:22 amThe Fenway really is a great place, full of great people with strong opinions. I miss all the controversy, passion and conviction, even if I at times felt “afflicted” by those traits when I tried to collaborate with the “comfortable” and the powerful during my 12 years as Fenway CDC’s executive director. I’m glad to know you all are still debating such important questions that are otherwise ignored in a country more concerned with Mosques near Ground Zero than with economic justice. You’ll notice I haven’t weighed in on the controversy at hand. I think that’s one better settled among Fenwickians, with respectful consideration of the views of the Fenway News’ founding mothers and fathers, many of whom have weighed in eloquently.
Carl
Posted by Carl Nagy-Koechlin | September 11, 2010, 1:18 amI was raised in Irish-Catholic Dorchester in the 50s and 60s. At that time Dorchester was one of the least diverse communities in the city. In fact, most communities, the North End, the South End, Roxbury, Mattapan, etc were essentially enclaves segregated by race, religion, ethnicity, class, etc.
When I move to the Fenway in 1984, one of the first things that I noticed about this community was its diversity and that has been one of the primary reasons why I have remained here. However, one doesn’t have to do much more than wait for the 55 bus to see that diversity is no longer the first thing one notices when coming to the Fenway.
Since the years when the Fenway News was first formed many of the then “afflicted” have become the now “comfortable.” Specifically, persons who were once tenants have become property owners and are embracing the gentrification of the neighborhood. Why wouldn’t they? As rents and properties values increase, due to the influx of a wealthier and significantly less diverse people moving into the monstrous hi-rise apartment buildings with their astronomical rents and their over-priced street-level bistros, so does the value of their properties.
But not everyone in the Fenway was fortunate enough to purchase a condominium when the price was affordable. Many of us pay rent to landlords who invest only in the exterior of their buildings and do nothing to provide safe and affordable housing. I live in a one-bedroom apartment. I pay $1,500 a month to live in a building that is overrun with rodents, where the basement floods everytime in rains; that gets broken into on a semi-regular basis, and where the landlord has not updated or renovated anything in my apartment since the day I moved in. Heck. I just discovered that I have a hive of honey bees living in my wall! And I am not alone and there is no incentive for landlords to not continually raise rents.
And as the neighborhood continues to gentrify, more and more tenants will be forced to move out, only to be replaced with more and more so-called “comfortable” people and the inevitable result will be less diversity. And by diversity, I am not talking solely about racial diversity, which is essential, but there also yuppies of color. By diversity I mean, students, artists and blue-collar workers; families with children and seniors; people of varying religious beliefs and gays; ethnic and cultural diversity; “mom and pop” businesses rather than corporate franchises; as well as low-income people and persons with disabilities. Where will these people go when they cam no longer afford to live in the “comfortable” Fenway? And when they go so goes the reason why many of us have chosen the Fenway as our home.
Interestingly, the only diverse population that is increasing in numbers in the Fenway is the numbers of homeless people who we all hear as they rattle through our back alleys rummaging for bottles, and who sit on the sidewalk outside of the convenience stores begging for change, and who sleep under bridges until one day they cease to appear because they have fallen in the river and drowned. This is also the result of gentrification.
So, how do I feel about the Fenway News dropping its motto “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable?” I think that it is indicia of a neighborhood that is becoming comfortable with being comfortable and seeing the afflicted as a barrier to gentrfication.
I understand that it has been proposed that the motto be modified to “comforting the afflicted.” Well, I say that if we don’t do something to afflict the comfortable there won’t be any afflicted to comfort.
Walter Noons is a human rights attorney who has resided in the Fenway for 26 years.
Posted by Walter Noons | September 12, 2010, 3:53 pm1.
No one has yet addressed the difficulty of keeping the newspaper coming out in 2010–never mind undertaking the kind of investigative journalism that I believe most commenters here associate with “afflicting the comfortable.” Publishing the FN has become increasingly difficult over the last decade as people society-wide have turned away from print media as a news source. When you open up an early issue of the paper, one immediate surprise is the bounty of small ads from locally owned stores and businesses. Those establishments are for the most part long gone, replaced by outposts of national chains that have to check with corporate HQ before advertising. Or, if they’re not national, potential advertisers often now use other media to reach customers. In either case, a key source of funding that supported the paper in its early years continues to shrink. If the slogan makes it harder to sell ads, where do you come down? On the side of keeping it, even if that decision threatens the paper’s very survival? Or on the side of keeping the paper alive to continue serving as a voice for the neighborhood?
2.
The idea that the FN has the resources to undertake the kind of investigative journalism it provided in the 1970s and 80s strikes me as a romantic fantasy. Certainly we can–and do–editorialize against Bad Actors in the neighborhood, but the paper has for some time struggled simply to function as a forum for neighborhood news and views (see my first point). Further, even assuming that we had the resources to do consistent, investigative reporting, wouldn’t it make more tactical sense to ACT as a comforter/afflictor without ANNOUNCING that intention—to see ourselves as “stealth” journalists? In fact, the paper isn’t so equipped at the moment; sadly, that renders the slogan an empty—but very public—boast.
3.
Since this debate began it has felt oddly familiar, but it took me awhile to figure out why. The pro-slogan camp, to me, sounds surprisingly like the “originalists” who argue that the US Supreme Court can only interpret laws based on what is expressly spelled out in the Constitution. The drop-the-slogan camp sounds surprisingly like the “living Constitution” faction, which argues that the Constitution sets out values that guide the Supremes in their interpretation of law but cannot be viewed as prescribing every right and restriction. I imagine the save-the-slogan folks will balk at being compared to Antonin Scalia, but the parallels feel striking. I confess that I come down on the pragmatic side. I don’t see de-emphasizing or losing the slogan a sell-out to gentrification if it helps the paper survive.
As Stephen Brophy pointed out in his September column, the comforting/afflicting phrase originated as a satirical wink at the tabloid newspapers of the late 19th century. It re-emerged in the 1960s and 70s, stripped of any irony, as a rallying cry among many of the grassroots movements then underway in the Fenway and nationally. Given that history and given the current conditions under which The Fenway News operates I would vote to lay the slogan to rest. As a board member, I believe that can strengthen the paper’s credibility (because it won’t promise what it can’t deliver), sharpen its focus, and broaden its ability to welcome new readers.
Posted by Steve Wolf | October 7, 2010, 12:30 amI hope you’re covering the State Police’s random ticketing and towing of cars parked perfectly legally along the Fenway, for I understand it is a community issue.
Last night I left the MFA late, after a lecture, only to find that my car wasn’t where I’d parked it. Just in case I’d somehow misremembered the place, I walked up and down the street clicking the “unlock” button on my car key, to no avail. And the red truck I thought I’d parked behind was exactly as I remembered. I then went to the MFA garage to ask, which was the greater possibility – that my car had been towed or stolen? “Towed, said the manager, “Happens all the time.” I was told that the area where I’d parked is particularly vulnerable, and both residents and museum attendees are so afflicted. They directed me to Stanley Towing on Washington Street in JP, saying they believe the State Police have some sort of arrangement with that towing company and they seem to ticket at random. I was also told that lots of people have disputed their tickets, taking pictures of signage for the place they’d parked, but the police aren’t listening. When I asked the people at Stanley Towing, “Why me?” they said my car was probably the easiest one around to tow. I am disputing the ticket, asking to be reimbursed for the costs of towing and taxi. I’m also wondering what others who have been ticketed and towed illegally are doing to call attention to this thoughtless-at-best police behavior?!
Posted by Kitty Ward | October 14, 2010, 3:12 pmWhy not simply report straight up, fair and balanced, without bias or agenda? While comforting the afflicted is a noble sentiment why “afflict” those who are comfortable, as if they have done something wrong because they are “comfortable?” Isn’t that what we want for all, to live comfortably? Anything else smacks of envy…
Posted by RJ | October 22, 2010, 11:46 pmSorry to come late to the discussion. I worked on the paper in the 70′s and early 80′s and enjoyed the slogan. I always took it as a bit of a joke — and that the “comfortable” were not only the materially well off, but in a Protestant sense, those who were too sure they were in the right. For me it does not imply a needless polarization as Stephen feared in his original post. Both rich and poor, both left and right can at times get too comfortable in our ways, and it’s the duty of the press to take a fresh look, to expose and to criticize. From what I hear, six companies dominate the U.S. media landscape (http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main), so we can’t take for granted that unpopular voices will be heard and that those who have gotten too comfortable will be afflicted, or at least exposed if reforms are needed.
I’m glad to hear that Northeastern and the Christian Science Church are well represented in the FN, because they are an important part of the neighborhood. I hope they haven’t taken offense at the slogan and that they don’t mind honest evaluation of both their positive and negative aspects. But it’s just a slogan. The current board should choose the slogan that best fits its vision of the FN’s goals.
Posted by Cole Harrison | February 2, 2011, 4:06 pm