In Plymouth, a clash between a news startup and town officials over daily reporting
As new outlets revive coverage in their cities and towns, the case in Plymouth shows how some public officials react to the scrutiny.
It was about as parochial a controversy as you could find — residents in a Plymouth waterfront condo development had taken numerous noise complaints to town officials, one of which listed “public drinking, loud music, cars peeling out,” and other indignities.
The Plymouth Independent’s December story about the disturbances was one the dozens it has published each week in the year since it launched its nonprofit endeavor to fill the void left by the contraction of the town’s longtime newspaper. But this one touched a nerve.
Town Manager Derek Brindisi was incensed by the story, complaining that one of his quotes was taken out of context and questioned whether his interview was recorded without his consent. He accused the publication of pursuing coverage that was not “fair and balanced,” and went as far as to launch his own podcast, “Counterpoint,“ whose sole episode to date is an eight-minute treatise against the Independent’s take on the noise complaints.
Finally, Brindisi — who a year and a half earlier had enthusiastically welcomed the Independent to town — declared that town employees were no longer to respond to any inquiries from the outlet unless legally required by the state’s open records law and until he felt a resolution was reached. Brindisi has since lifted the ban, but it was the second such directive in three months.
Disputes between governments and newsrooms are a typical part of local coverage, but the saga in Plymouth is a stark example of what can happen in communities not recently served by local news, with town officials readjusting to journalistic scrutiny from newer outlets. It’s also another hurdle for news startups trying to build an audience for independent reporting at a time when trust in news is low, and news outlets have struggled to build sustainable businesses in the digital age.
“We’re in an environment where people in positions of power feel like they can bend the Constitution to fit their needs, and they forget that their role is to serve the public,” said Mark Pothier, a former Globe journalist and a Plymouth resident who now leads the Independent as editor and CEO, and wrote a column about the recent ban, to which Brindisi penned a response.
While Plymouth is still covered by news outlets such as the South Shore radio station WATD, its core source of local information had been the more than 200-year-old Old Colony Memorial newspaper. Pothier once served as an executive editor of its parent company. The paper is still printed weekly under the ownership of Gannett, but its staff is much smaller and recent print papers have included very few stories about Plymouth.
(Gannett said in a statement that its staff at the Old Colony Memorial “remains committed as ever to the quality, local coverage our valued community and readers depend on.”)
Tensions have been rising for months between the town and the Independent, with disagreements over whether reporters could record public meetings and the phrasing of emailed records requests from the publication. The town’s police chief, Dana Flynn, also won’t communicate with the Independent, citing concerns including the Independent’s coverage and its “nonstop questions” and requests for information.
“You ask a question, I answer. It was never good enough,” Flynn said.
Pothier defended the Independent’s coverage and said it is “doing what any news organization would do.”
Brindisi said in an interview that he has had issues with several Independent stories, including one about grease trap requirements for local restaurants, which included a line that said two business owners declined to comment out of fear of retaliation from town officials. He described the Independent’s reporting as “sensationalized.”
“If we’ve made mistakes, we, and myself included, we are open to criticism and accountability. We have nothing to hide,” Brindisi said. “We need to ensure that the information that is being provided is fair and it’s accurate, and that’s where I fear that the Plymouth Independent is missing the point.”
Brindisi told the Select Board on Dec. 22 that until the dispute could be resolved, he instructed “all appointed town officials to cease all communication with the Pl.” The ban was lifted on Wednesday.
“It was always my intention to remove this,” Brindisi said, adding that he and Pothier spoke on the phone for about an hour. “We both agreed that neither one of us are going anywhere and we have to work together.”
People around the local news industry are watching the situation in Plymouth as the latest example of the hiccups that local news nonprofits have faced as they seek to penetrate the civic lives of their communities.
Kelly McBride, a media ethicist at the Florida-based Poynter Institute who reviewed the stories and a piece written by Pothier about the communications ban, said the coverage seemed standard and that Brindisi may be misunderstanding some of the reporting.
“This local official seemed to be quite petty and a bit inexperienced with media coverage,” McBride said.
If town officials want positive messaging, that’s the job of public relations directors, McBride said.
“The news isn’t there to serve their interests,” McBride said. “It’s to serve the citizens of the community.”
Sam Mintz, the founding editor of Brookline.News, which launched in 2023 after the town’s former newspaper, the Tab, shuttered, said he had his own experience working through a tense public records request with the town, which they ultimately resolved.
And Mintz pointed out that some healthy sparring with local officials is only natural for an independent news organization.
“Frankly, if you had a perfectly, 100 percent happy and friendly relationship with the town as editor of a local newspaper, I would sort of wonder if you were doing your job to the best of your ability,” added Mintz, who recently wrote about how communities will have to adapt to new local news outlets for the media-focused outlet Nieman Lab.
Pothier defended the Independent’s reporting and its staff, which includes former Globe reporter Andrea Estes and former WBUR reporter Frederic Thys.
“We know how to report local news,” he said. “What he’s calling biased or unbalanced reporting is simply stories that may contain ideas and views of people that don’t agree with his.”
Brindisi’s issues with Independent coverage have often been about context and framing, rather than the accuracy of the facts conveyed in the stories. For example, he felt a story about a sewer project focused too much on cost overruns and didn’t highlight the environmental benefits. That led him to refer to the outlet as the “Plymouth Enquirer” in emails, a nod to the National Enquirer tabloid.
“I question what message they’re trying to send to our community,” Brindisi said.
Other town officials, including Select Board Vice Chair Kevin Canty, are “cautiously optimistic” that the relationship over time can be mended.
“I continue to see the value in having a professional relationship between the town and the Independent,” said Canty. “The two entities are, by their nature, never going to 100 percent agree, but it is still a valuable resource for our community and an important component of a healthy democracy to have a local news source.”
Pothier said that donations were up, and that the Independent — which he said has more than 23,000 newsletter subscribers in a town of about 65,000 residents — has published several letters from readers who praised the outlet and criticized Brindisi for his recent ban on communications.
“It’s really the last thing I want to be doing,” Pothier said of dealing with the ban. “From the beginning, the intention of the Plymouth Independent was to help foster a sense of community and to cover a broad range of subjects.”
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