This week, managing editor Brian Zayatz reports on the dark money flowing into Longmeadow in advance of a town meeting vote that could begin construction of a municipally-owned fiber internet network.

“We’re very well aware that Mass Priorities is not just throwing away their money,” Vineeth Hemavathi, a Select Board member on the town’s Municipal Fiber Task Force, told The Shoestring. “They're doing it in a very strategic way that has worked before.”

Mass Priorities, tied to a Minnesota-based dark money group and active in numerous communities around Massachusetts that have considered creating a public internet utility, has spent over $300,000 on Facebook ads alone in this state since 2019, with additional spending going into mailers and canvassing. It’s virtually impossible to track funding sources of such groups, but Mass Priorities has only been active in communities where Comcast is the dominant internet provider.

After spending the spring considering candidates from within the ranks of our talented freelance reporters, The Shoestring is thrilled to announce that divina cordeiro will be joining us as a staff reporter starting in June!

In divina’s own words:

Take a look back at some of their stellar work with us over the years, including as our summer intern last year, and pat yourself on the back for helping expand our capacity to keep western Mass informed. Your donations this winter made this expansion possible, and we hope to keep that momentum up into next year and beyond.

With gratitude,

The Shoestring

This week, Sarah Robertson reported on the multi-state coalition bringing urine recycling to Franklin County.

It’s an effort that seeks to address a growing problem: nutrients from human waste, even after being treated, can pollute waterways by feeding algae blooms that upset the delicate balances of those ecosystems. But they’re also the same nutrients that grow food and other crops. By diverting human urine away from wastewater and towards fertilizer production, Vermont’s Rich Earth Institute and the Long Island Sound Futures Fund hope to solve two problems with one urinal.

“What we’re doing at the Rich Earth Institute, and many other places around the world, is working to reconnect that linear nutrient flow back into the food nutrient cycle,” said Julia Cavicchi, the organization’s education director. “Where we can keep our waste out of our water so our water is cleaner and safer to use and live in, and our nutrients can be easier to reclaim and keep in our local food systems.”

Read more about how it works and what to expect from the Rich Earth’s new venture here, or in this week’s edition of the Montague Reporter.

More soon,

The Shoestring

This week, Colin Weinstein reports on two pro-Israel legal advocacy groups suing to block Northampton from divesting from “entities complicit in human rights violations in Israel and Palestine.” While the plaintiffs argue the resolution violates state and federal law, divestment activists say the effort amounts to “lawfare” and is a dangerous attempt to chill free speech. Weintstein’s reporting touches on the history of similar movements, including the Massachusetts case that landed before the Supreme Court, which the plaintiffs cite in their filing, and features the voices of activists near and far as they prepare to defend their victories.

Also this week, reporter Jonathan Gerhardson was named a finalist for a Nonprofit News Award for explanatory journalism for his feature last year on market consolidation in the death-care industry in western Mass. Congratulations, Jon!

And managing editor Brian Zayatz hit the road again for the second time in two weeks, this time to attend the Rural Revenue Transformation Workshop at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. The fully-funded workshop included sessions on becoming “grant-ready,” creative experiments with print media, fellowship programs, and more.

Though independent media is far from a lucrative venture these days, we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think there was potential to grow something special here, and we’re always glad to have an opportunity to learn from our peers doing the same across the country.

Thanks as always for reading, sharing, and supporting our work,

The Shoestring

Following a splashy announcement last month from Gov. Maura Healey that state employees will now have access to ChatGPT, reporter Jonathan Gerhardson requested records from the state on the different uses they’ve been studying for the technology. Though the state fully redacted 31 out of 40 of those uses, what emerged was a much more detailed view of the ways AI might make its way into government functions than what Healey announced.

Applicants for SNAP benefits, for example, may have their calls summarized by an AI program listening to their conversation. A similar tool being developed for MassHealth’s third-party liability call center may process sensitive information. And while some of these programs will live in a “sandboxed,” or self-contained, state-owned digital environment, others will not.

The state says that its investment in AI technology will improve services and attract investment to the state, but others who spoke to Gerhardson, like a representative for the union that represents DTA call-center workers, said investments in expanding staff would do more to improve capacity for assisting residents.

On another front in the ongoing human vs. bot conflict, The Shoestring sent Managing Editor Brian Zayatz to Boston this week to lobby alongside other news publishers, reporters, and supporters for legislative intervention in the local news crisis. With newsroom employment down 60% in Massachusetts between 2013 and 2023, it can be tempting to cede such a critical public service as news production to AI. But we think we still have options to reverse course on news desertification, and we hope we can get our legislators to agree. Read Zayatz’s report on the trip here.

Thank you, as always, for reading, sharing, and supporting our work.

More soon,

The Shoestring

This week, we collaborated with the Montague Reporter to tell the story of eight years in the history of Turners Falls’ deindustrialization.

While some former mill buildings around western Mass have been successfully repurposed, the same cannot be said of the Strathmore, a sprawling, once state-of-the-art paper mill that ceased production in 1993. On its journey from beacon of prosperity to symbol of capital flight, the Strathmore was subject to numerous efforts by townsfolk to prevent the decay that in hindsight looks inevitable — from an attempt by employees to purchase the mill and continue production to a pivot to “arts and industry.”

In 4,000 words, reporter Melissa Karen Sances brings us the voices of the Strathmore’s stewards from that era in light of the complex’s near-certain demolition. Read it on our site, or in this week’s edition of the Montague Reporter.

Earlier in the week, we also published a follow-up from Joe Douglass on a class-action lawsuit that could expose Baystate Health, and other hospital systems, to millions of dollars of liability. A federal judge denied Baystate’s motion to dismiss last week, which means that the case, focused on whether sharing patient data collected by the hospital’s website is a violation of the law, will move on to discovery.

We’ll be back next week with more independent news for western Mass,

The Shoestring

This week, we bring you two stories on ongoing organizing efforts within the world of public education in western Mass. In the first, divina cordeiro reports on last week’s “Rural and Declining Enrollment Schools Week of Action,” in which public school communities from across western Mass and beyond raised their voices to state legislators about the challenges of running schools in small or shrinking towns.

“It’s a death spiral,” Martha Thurber, the chair of the Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee, said of the fiscal crisis that schools face when their enrollment declines. “What you end up ultimately with is a shell of a school that’s providing only the very, very basics.” Thurber and other advocates are calling for the state to put $60 million towards stabilizing rural districts, a recommendation of a 2022 report on the subject.

And from UMass Amherst, Colin Weinstein reports on the latest Popular Assembly at the state’s flagship public university campus, where organizers are looking for more ways to connect their various struggles.

"Our goal here is to increase participation across all these different projects and efforts and struggles, and further democratize our various projects,” Marianna Ritchey, a music professor and organizer of the event, told The Shoestring.

After testimony on austerity, a First Amendment suit, and more, those gathered discussed points of unity and broke into groups to cross-pollinate their various campaigns.

Thanks, as always, for reading, sharing, and supporting our work,

The Shoestring

This week, we bring you two stories about tenant organizing in the midst of the state’s housing crisis.

Investigations editor Dusty Christensen profiled the burgeoning Easthampton Tenants Union, which began organizing last year when residents of multiple corporate-owned complexes in the city faced steep rent hikes and deferred maintenance. Already, the group has major victories under its belt — and they don’t have plans to let up.

Mona Shadi, a Pine Valley Realty tenant who negotiated a monthly rent increase down from $300 to $45 with the support of the union, explained the group’s success thus:

“What I tell people is that we know what a plane is, we know what a plane looks like, and so we built something that looked like a plane but it turns out it actually flies.”

Earlier in the week, Jonathan Gerhardson reported from Holyoke on a press conference in which local politicians joined real estate industry representatives to come out against another tenant organizing effort: the push to put statewide rent control on November’s ballot.

According to the speakers, statewide rent control would cause investors to cease new residential construction, which would worsen the housing crisis and cascade into a municipal finance crunch as property values decrease. But pro-rent control organizers on the scene didn’t buy the bleak vision, nor the lip service paid to renters’ struggles.

Gerhardson’s story visits with both camps, checks in on fundraising totals for the conspicuously similarly named pro- and anti-rent control committees, and adds valuable context the presser’s claims — read it in full here.

Stay tuned next week for more independent news for western Mass,

The Shoestring

This week, we collaborated with the Montague Reporter on a tale of frayed equipment and frayed relationships. Customers of Greenfield's publicly owned internet utility experienced a days-long outage earlier this month, a situation that could have been dangerous to city residents who rely on internet-connected medical devices or home phones. But once connection was reestablished, problems of a different nature also became visible: a strained relationship between the city and the utility.

Reporter Jonathan Gerhardson looks into just what went wrong and follows the aftermath of the outage, during which one city official accused the utility’s leadership of negligence. The manager of the internet provider, in turn, feels the city has hampered efforts to finance necessary upkeep, and is exploring options to restructure the utility to be more independent of the city.

We’ve lots of great stories coming your way in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned! Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing our work,

The Shoestring

This week, reporter Dylan Vrins brings us a breakdown of proposals to relax hunting restrictions in Massachusetts, including a 19th-century ban on Sunday hunting that is still in effect. Driven by surging deer populations in the eastern part of the state, MassWildlife hopes that increasing the annual deer harvest will ease food insecurity, reduce tick-borne illness, and improve forest ecology. But not everyone agrees the changes are warranted, or that they’ll be effective: Vrins’ story features the voices of hunters, foresters, and outdoor enthusiasts who run the gamut of opinions on the proposed changes.

And this morning, Colin Weinstein reports on some signs of the times: specifically, lawn signs reading “THIS JEW SAYS: SHAME ON VELIS” and “VELIS: STOP PUSHING TRUMP'S AGENDA” that have been cropping up around Easthampton. They’re part of an ongoing campaign over the Westfield Democrat’s role co-chairing the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, and organizers of the argue the commission’s recommendations could potentially chill free speech around Israel and Palestine within the state’s public schools if enacted. Weinstein’s reporting catches up with organizers (but not Velis, who has been deployed as a National Guardsmen to the U.S./Mexico border) and recounts a now years-long tale of Jewish dissent against the commission.

Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing our work,

The Shoestring

This week, we’re checking in on Holyoke, where November’s election brought a new liberal supermajority into City Council. With long-stalled municipal finance reform passed in the first session, new councilors are hopeful about the body’s prospects for both legislative accomplishments and improved decorum, reporter divina cordeiro found. In this deep-dive on Paper City politics, cordeiro digs into the challenges the new councilors will face along the way, like pressure from the city’s police unions, potential disagreements with Mayor Joshua Garcia, and prominent conservative voices remaining on the council.

From Northampton, Bill Shaner follows up on the Northwestern DA’s prosecution of a rapid responder to a Worcester ICE raid last year. This week, Assistant DA Steven Gagne convicted former Worcester city councilor Etel Haxhiaj of assault on a public employee after she declined a plea deal that would have required her to sign an apology letter. She received a probation sentence only slightly more severe than what she was offered.

“I chose the truth,” Haxhiaj told a crowd of supporters after the trial. “We must challenge prosecutors who… use their prosecutorial discretion to pursue charges that are not in the interest of justice.”

From the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, we’re sharing more data reporting on the status of opioid settlement money disbursement around the state. Jonathan Gerhardson has been working with our friends to the east on compiling and analyzing state data on the payouts from pharmaceutical companies, finding that municipalities have only spent 17% of distributed funds so far.

The Shoestring doesn’t take on state-level stories very often, so we’re always pleased to share the work of BINJ when their reporting is relevant to our readers. A couple other stories drew our attention to the state level this week, too: Andrew Quemere’s reporting on Gov. Maura Healey’s seemingly contradictory stances on ICE activity in the state, and reporting from Bolts on the human cost of the state’s continued active partnership with ICE.

Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing our work -

The Shoestring

With a fresh round of layoffs thinning the ranks of billionaire-owned legacy media, it feels especially true that the future of impactful journalism is decentralized, nonprofit, and community-rooted. We’ll take this opportunity to thank you for doing your part to keep indie media alive in western Mass, whether by opening this email, reading and sharing our work, or donating.

This week, we finally had a reason to collaborate with Bill Shaner of the awesome Worcester Sucks and I Love It newsletter — though we wish it were under better circumstances. As Shaner reported for The Shoestring, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan is moving forward with the prosecution of two community rapid responders to a May ICE raid in Worcester after the local DA recused himself from the case.

Sullivan recently made headlines after pledging to prosecute ICE agents who do not follow the law in the Northwestern district. His office stressed to The Shoestring that the Worcester protesters were being prosecuted for alleged assaults during the May incident, not for demonstrating against ICE — but that did not stop a crowd of dozens from rallying against the charges last Saturday.

Worcester residents were some of the first in Mass to witness firsthand the Trump 2 immigration enforcement surge, which meant they were also some of the first to see how local police would respond to federal activity. Largely, they were outraged over WPD’s assistance of the feds over city residents.

“Police departments need to train their police officers to not respond to ICE requests, as well as document and share with communities these requests,” Etel Haxhiaj, one of the defendants and a former Worcester city councilor, told The Shoestring. Read Shaner’s full story here.

This morning, we published a letter from Venezuela courtesy of Hector Figarella, a western Mass local who has witnessed firsthand the fallout of the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Figarella situates the recent action in a long history of U.S. imperialism targeting the country and discusses how things look on the ground in the South American nation.

“Today, Venezuela is relatively calm,” Figarella writes, but “there have been mass mobilizations on the streets of the capital and many cities across Venezuela, denouncing the U.S. aggression and demanding the return of President Maduro and Flores… These imperialist attacks have strengthened the chavismo [socialist movement].”

As everyday people the world over resist authoritarianism, thank you for trusting us to bring you their stories.

More soon,

The Shoestring

Our Saturday newsletter is on Sunday again, this time to highlight an investigation we conducted with the Springfield Republican into wiretapping in Hampden County.

The Shoestring’s investigations editor, Dusty Christensen, along with his counterpart at the Republican, Greta Jochem, tracked down reports that district attorneys are required to file with the state detailing their wiretaps each year. Some DAs requested no wiretaps at all during the four-year period Christensen and Jochem analyzed. But Hampden DA Anthony Gulluni requested 83, just three less than the entire rest of the state combined. Since each wiretap warrant can cover multiple phone numbers, the number of individuals tapped likely numbers in the hundreds. Unique “interceptions” of phone calls and other data can reach into the hundreds of thousands in a single year, the reporters found.

While Massachusetts has some of the strongest protections against wiretapping in the country, some legislators — including Westfield Democratic Sen. John Velis — are trying to change that.

Christensen and Jochem’s report covers these legislative efforts, accusations of discrimination against Gulluni, and the DA’s defense of his unique program, which he says is necessary due stop drug trafficking in the county. Read the full story on our website, or in today’s edition of the Republican.

Earlier this week, reporter Dan McGlynn covered the employee letters that have stalled the hiring of outgoing Northampton Public Schools Superintendent Portia Bonner at the Collaborative for Educational Services, a nonprofit serving Hampshire and Franklin County schools. Letters The Shoestring obtained include one by non-union CES staff criticizing the hiring process, and another by unionized staff criticizing the choice of Bonner, specifically. Bonner has overseen the city’s schools during recent budget crunches that resulted in layoffs and an overwhelming vote of “no confidence” in her leadership by the school’s union.

In a letter on Tuesday, CES’ Board of Directors Chair Cathy Englehardt told staff that “Any complaint against an employee (in this case, someone who was offered a position) is heard and discussed in executive session with legal representatives from both sides present,” and that such a meeting would push back contract negotiations with Bonner.

More soon,

The Shoestring

This week, we republished a story from our friends at the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, who have tracked both the impacts of Gov. Maura Healey’s neglect of the parole system and skewed coverage of parole by Mass. media. As Jean Trounstine reports, parolees, advocates, and attorneys want the public to understand the restrictions that come with parole, and the ways that long vacancies on the parole board mean more time spent behind bars for those eligible for release.

Also this week, Jonathan Gerhardson reported on new regulations that will allow for “social consumption” of cannabis products at businesses that meet strict guidelines, and the slate of entrepreneurs who are first in line to try it out: those who have previously been harmed by the War on Drugs. But even with the leg up, significant hurdles remain for those interested in trying out a new business model. One hopeful Matthew Warwick, is eager to open a music venue that allows for on-site cannabis consumption — but Cannabis Control Commissioners estimate it could still take well over a year for the first businesses to open.

And in Holyoke, divina cordeiro brings an update on stalled contract negotiations between the city’s teachers union and school committee. After exiting 10 years of state receivership, during which time the receiver had full control over teacher contracts, bargaining has now dragged on for over a year as the educators confront “truly egregious” provisions put forth by the school committee, as union member Pete Duffy put it.

Stay safe and warm -

The Shoestring

Thanks to those that joined us for Thursday’s documentary screening at Visions Video in Northampton — we had a great discussion on ethics, photojournalism, and localizing stories of war after the film, and hope to bring you more events like this in the future. If you weren’t able to join, you can still catch the doc THE STRINGER on Netflix.

This week, we published Joe Douglass’ investigation into the laws governing fire suppression installation in residential buildings as the dust settles on two apartment fires in Holyoke that displaced over 100 people.

The city has opted into a state law that requires sprinkler installations with major renovations of apartment buildings. But a Supreme Judicial Court case — also originating in Holyoke — makes the threshold for that law to be triggered exceedingly high.

With experts, and a former resident of one of the buildings, wishing all buildings could have sprinkler systems, Douglass looked into lobbying records to see what’s holding up widespread requirements of fire suppression.

Stay tuned for more stories next week,

The Shoestring

We’re kicking off 2026 with some of our favorite topics: housing, the police, and public records.

Before I get into that, a quick reminder: we’re hosting a film screening with Visions Video in Northampton on Thursday evening for the new documentary, THE STRINGER, investigating the overlooked contributions of local photographers in documenting the Vietnam War. Then, Southampton photojournalist Ben Brody joins us for a conversation about documenting war up close and from afar. I’m really looking forward to it, and I hope you’ll join — you can find more details and reserve your seat here.

In breaking news this week, Dusty Christensen reported that a Suffolk County judge has ordered the Northwestern District Attorney’s office to turn over unredacted records of police misconduct to an independent journalist, Andrew Quemere. The records relate to instances of criminal misconduct by police officers in Hampshire and Franklin counties: known as Brady letters after a landmark Supreme Court case, prosecutors are required to turn them over to defendants along with other potentially exculpatory evidence.

The DA’s office may still appeal the ruling to a higher court. For Quemere, who has been waiting years for the records, the saga illustrates the ineffectiveness of Massachusetts public records law.

“It doesn’t serve as a very good deterrent of obstructing the release of information that everyone knows should be public,” he told The Shoestring.

Christensen also reported on an event the Westfield Police Department promoted on Facebook that drew an uproar: a meeting for landlords promising to help them increase their profit. Christensen found that the meetings have been ongoing for years, and that at least one Westfield captain believes there’s good reason for it.

“Most of the crimes that occur, most of the police calls that occur, are rental properties,” Capt. Steve Dickinson told The Shoestring. “The reason for that is that they’re transient.”

Katie Talbot, a Westfield tenant and organizer with Springfield No One Leaves, a grassroots housing justice organization, countered that “the reason tenants are often transient and can’t put roots down in a community, even though they want to, is because landlords are able to increase rents 50%, 75%, 100%.”

The meeting is still scheduled for Tuesday night and is open to the public. “Certainly tenants could show up if they have issues,” Dickinson said.

We’ll be back next week with more independent news for western Mass -

The Shoestring

Before getting to this week’s stories, a big thank you goes out to everyone who donated to our annual campaign over the last two months for helping keep The Shoestring free for everyone in 2026. With over 350 individual donations matched by NewsMatch and other local donors, we raised over $69,000 — within striking distance of our $75,000 goal.

We’ll be spending the coming weeks assessing what these results mean for our budget this year, but in all likelihood, we should be able to make that hire we’ve been dreaming of: our first full-time reporter. We can’t wait to update you on our progress!

In the meantime, we’ve got more stories to tell. With a buzzer-beater for one of our most read stories of 2025, Jonathan Gerhardson reported this week on the proposed “hyperscale” (i.e., really big) data center in Westfield, and it’s apparent abandonment by its investors.

Though news outlets speculated as recently as the summer that groundbreaking on the facility, which would have used more than double the amount of energy as the entire rest of the city, could be as little as six months away, The Shoestring’s investigation found that the state has dissolved the investors’ LLC, multiple permits for the project have expired, and one investor left after racking up over $1 million in fines over a Connecticut-based venture.

Gerhardson’s reporting covers the evidence of the project’s faltering and looks back on the years of efforts by state and local lawmakers to secure tax breaks for the development. Read the full story here.

With gratitude, and looking forward to another year of public-service journalism,

The Shoestring

In 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the national responses, there were dozens of protests, marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations throughout the Valley. The biggest news outlets in the area were present for some of the largest of them. But as I attended more of these events, I consistently saw reporters from this small news outlet called The Shoestring. They were out there in the streets, interviewing residents from the city and surrounding towns, and they weren’t sensationalizing or nationalizing their reporting — they were asking local people about local issues.

The Shoestring wrote about this big national moment in terms of what did it mean to us? And, as time went on, more importantly doing the deep investigative journalism required to answer the question of how will our area respond and what does it mean for us?

Since then, The Shoestring has been a vital resource not just for staying informed about local happenings, but really understanding what is going on underneath. Many of our local news outlets publish press releases, or include news from other states. They aren’t doing the deep and long work of submitting records requests, poring over hundreds of pages, interviewing local people and politicians, and giving that to us in smart and insightful stories. The Shoestring has covered police brutality against a local woman, fossil fuel and power plant infrastructure, local elections and neighborhood schools — all stories that other outlets neglected or missed entirely.

Marisol Driouech’s case in particular, a 60-year-old woman who was brutalized by police during a routine stop, including being physically and verbally assaulted, stands out. What might have been overlooked by larger outlets was picked up and ultimately got a lot of local residents engaged with Northampton’s city government, including myself, calling for more changes to public safety.

The Shoestring keeps us informed about what’s going on, and helps uncover things we should be tackling as a community. I support The Shoestring because I don’t know anyone else doing exactly what they do so well. I encourage you to support them today with a one-time or recurring donation, matched dollar for dollar by NewsMatch until midnight tonight.

I'll give today!

Sincerely,

Daniel Cannity

Daniel Cannity is a member of The Shoestring’s advisory board, and was a co-chair of the Northampton Policing Review Commission

This year may be winding down, but here at The Shoestring we’re looking forward to what’s next.

Over the summer, we asked you what you wanted to see more of, and overwhelmingly, you answered that investigations and local government reporting were your top priorities.

That’s why in 2026, we’re planning to hire our first full-time reporter to keep you informed of what’s happening in local government. Together with our team of editors and freelancers, we think we’re poised to have our biggest year yet.

With just over a week left in our year-end campaign, we’re still about $15,000 shy of our $75,000 goal. Your support, plus a dollar-for-dollar match from NewsMatch (with new monthly donations matched at the 12-month amount!), can help us close that gap and bring a bright future into fruition for The Shoestring.

We are proud to be rooted in western Mass, delivering the public service journalism that you deserve. Can we count on you to help us start the new year off on solid footing?

I want more from The Shoestring in 2026!

We’re grateful for your investment in nonprofit news.

With gratitude,

The Shoestring

On Thursday, protestors of L3 Harris, the weapons manufacturer with a facility in Northampton, brought their campaign against the company to the Hampshire County Courthouse.

Police arrested the four activists as they occupied the facility’s lobby in March. Now, the group are hoping the Northampton District Court will find in favor of their “necessity defense” for their action — the argument that their illegal action was necessary to prevent a greater, imminent harm.

Speaking during Thursday’s hearing, activist Paki Wieland said the group “wanted to educate the people” about the company’s links to human rights abuses through their action, “because once you know, you can’t not know.”

Reporting from the courthouse, Colin Weinstein digs into the history of the necessity defense in Northampton and the group’s strategy behind their day in court.

In case you missed it earlier this week, The Shoestring and Visions Video are hosting a film screening next month! Join us to view the new documentary THE STRINGER, which investigates the origins of the Napalm Girl photo and the overlooked contributions of local photographers during the Vietnam War, and for a discussion afterwards with photojournalist Ben Brody about covering war abroad and at home. Find details and ticket information here.

The Shoestring will be on our year-end break next week, but we can’t wait to bring you some of the bigger stories that have been keeping us busy all month when we’re back. We hope you’re able to find some moments of peace next week, too.

More soon,

The Shoestring

Make a matched donation today!

Next month, The Shoestring and Visions Video are hosting a screening of THE STRINGER, a new documentary investigating the origins of the “Napalm Girl” photo and the forgotten contributions of local photographers during the Vietnam War — and we would love for you to join us.

Following the screening at Visions Video’s downtown Northampton shop, The Shoestring’s Brian Zayatz will speak with photojournalist Ben Brody about the connections between war reporting abroad and at home.

Tickets for the Jan. 15 event are limited, so don’t wait to reserve yours. All proceeds go towards sustaining The Shoestring in 2026, and just like with regular donations, ticket purchases made before Jan. 1 will be matched dollar for dollar by NewsMatch.

For more details or to reserve your ticket, click the button below.

Reserve your ticket!

More soon,

The Shoestring