Open Media Boston Celebrates Seventh Anniversary, Plans Fall Relaunch

March 20 was the seventh anniversary of more-or-less continuous publication of Open Media Boston. I say "more or less" because we have had a number of periods where our publication of metro news and views has slowed to a trickle for a variety of reasons. Usually because of my situation at the time.

For example, if I was sick for a few days, or went on vacation, or was very busy in grad school - or lately when I've been very busy with teaching at Lesley University and very active in the drive to unionize so-called "core faculty" like myself there - then I would only publish articles that people happened to submit without actively beating the proverbial bushes for new work. Which led to gaps in our regular news cycle.

Obviously it's difficult to work a regular gig and run an online news weekly at the same time. And that's why OMB has been gradually slowing down since last fall in just the fashion described above.

I kept this publication going throughout this period because part of the reason for taking a regular teaching post at Lesley was to operationalize a "Plan B" for OMB that would allow us to continue moving forward in reasonably good shape for at least the medium term.

But that Plan B doesn't look like its going to happen now.

So I've come up with a Plan C: I'm not going to pull the plug on OMB, but I am going to reorganize it and relaunch it as a different kind of publication. One that reflects contemporary trends in technology and publishing. And one that's likely to better serve the progressive grassroots social movements that OMB was created to serve. We'll continue publishing occasional articles while we reorganize, but not on any kind of regular schedule.

What is Plan C? As with Plan B, I'm not making that public until it looks like my colleagues and I can really make a go of it.

Just know that we're planning to relaunch OMB by the fall. Keep an eye out for that, and when we ask for support certainly consider giving us a hand.

Thanks to all of our tens of thousands of regular viewers, and our hundreds of supporters for the first seven years of Open Media Boston's run. Here's hoping we can keep going for at least another seven years after a relaunch. 

Avanti.

Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston and an assistant professor of communications at Lesley University