A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
Around 1,000 people currently housed in motels and hotels across the state amid the ongoing housing crunch are desperate to find affordable housing now that the funding covering their rooms is ending.
“They’re breaking down,” said Jessica Margeson, tenants’ rights advocate with the Granite State Organizing Project, of people housed at the Comfort Inn. “They have no place to go.”
Two women, housed for months in area hotels at the government’s expense, are desperately looking for places to live now that the NH Emergency Rental Assistance funding is ending.
Nicole Eastman, 35, living at the Comfort Inn with three of her four teenage daughters for the past seven months, is having no luck finding an apartment. Neither is Roxanne Hunt, 58, who for 17 months has made her home at the Fairfield Inn in Hooksett.
On this episode of The Granite Beat hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with Matt Mowry, Executive Editor, and Christine Carignan, Chief Creative Officer, of Business New Hampshire Magazine. After many years with the magazine Matt and Christine became its owners last September. They joined us to talk about the transition and about investing in New Hampshire media in the modern day.
On this episode of The Granite Beat, hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with State House reporter Rick Green. Currently a reporter for The Keene Sentinel, Rick previously spent nearly 20 years with the Associated Press covering Oregon and Oklahoma before coming to New Hampshire where he worked for The Laconia Daily Sun and The Granite State News Collaborative.
On this episode of The Granite Beat hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with Daymond Steer, a general assignment reporter widely recognized and honored in New England, who covers the Mount Washington Valley for the Conway Daily Sun. His unique position allows him to shed light onto the happenings of various small towns in the Valley, telling stories – both critical and lighthearted – that would otherwise go untold.
Over the past two years, Sarah McPhee and Kirsten Durzy have heard scores of stories about Granite Stater’s lives during the pandemic. There was the new mom who delivered her child at the height of the pandemic; a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who had to muster a socially distanced support system; and the healthcare worker who spoke about his pain after caring for COVID victims.
A Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) report released in January, 2023, determined a feasibility study is required before the agency can move forward with its investigation of a cancer cluster in Merrimack.
But moving forward hinges on securing additional funding—which the New Hampshire House is currently weighing– according to the report.
It’s no secret that New Hampshire is in a mental health crisis. The National Alliance of Mental Illness in New Hampshire (NAMI) reported that 221,000 adults in New Hampshire have a mental health condition. That’s more than five times the population of Concord. But there aren’t enough providers to address those conditions, or beds available for those experiencing a crisis.
In this week’s episode of The State We’re In we discuss the current mental health crisis facing New Hampshire, why these issues are so important to New Hampshire residents, and what solutions and resources are available for Granite Staters. We also look at a year-long mental health awareness series done in partnership with the Seacoast Media Group and The Union Leader. Joining us is Seacoast Executive Editor Howard Altschiller, Union Leader President Brendan McQuaid, NAMI New Hampshire Executive Director Susan Stearns, and the “guiding spirit” of the series, Senior Director of External Affairs Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court John Broderick.
In this episode of The Granite Beat, hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with Manchester Ink Link founder Carol Robidoux, a veteran journalist who left behind the legacy outlets to create her hyperlocal news website to supply residents with local, reliable, and community-driven stories in a central hub. They discuss some of her recent stories, such as the Harmony Montgomery case, the affordable housing crisis and community-centered reporting.
On this week’s episode of Get Resource Smart, Flo speaks with Executive Director Tim Horgan and International Visitor Program Director Anise Jasman-Sayers of the World Affairs Council about how and why international events have critical impacts on us in New Hampshire. Tom and Anise provide insight to the beauty and importance of interacting with other cultures, how they’re working to bring global awareness to our next generation of future leaders, and how everyone in New Hampshire can get more involved both passively and actively.
Lawmakers are considering a bill, HB 514, which would remove exemptions to state obscenity laws from K-12 staff and teachers – a move that would potentially lead school officials to remove books proactively or face misdemeanor charges. Advocates say this puts more educational power in parents' hands, while opponents contend this amounts to a book ban that will silence minority perspectives.
In this episode of The State We’re In, we dig into the history, impact, and ramifications of a bill that would require each local school board to develop policy for responding to parental complaints of obscene material and remove some protections for K-12 school officials in state laws against obscenity. Joining us is bill sponsor, State Rep. Glen Cordelli from Carroll County District 7, and New Hampshire Bulletin Reporter Ethan DeWitt, who has been following the topic closely.
A few local nonprofits will see cuts in support from the town if the 2023-2024 proposed budget is approved at the town meeting on March 14, 2023.
At a recent meeting, selectmen discussed a proposal that would cut just over $6,800 in support to a handful of local nonprofit organizations. After advocates from Pemi Youth Center objected to the town taking away $3,000 of funding it was expecting to receive, the town agreed to reinstate the funds back into this year’s proposed budget, leaving $3,000 to be cut from donations to other local nonprofits. The budget committee and selectboard also recommended adding an additional $3,000 to other nonprofits it supports.
After the success of Get Tech Smart, Flo Nicolas is bringing Granite Staters Get Resource Smart, a show dedicated to shining a spotlight on organizations offering often-overlooked resources to the residents of New Hampshire. In the inaugural episode, Flo welcomes Bob McLaughlin from the National Collaborative for Digital Equity, a non-profit that works to make technology more accessible to low-income students and families.
This week, The Granite Beat hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart speak with Eric Rynston Lobel, an early-career journalist who already has an impressive breadth of experience. Since graduating from Northwestern he has written for Sports Illustrated as well as the Concord Monitor. They discussed how he chooses his stories, sought his view on where the industry is heading, and heard what advice he would give an aspiring journalist.
The classic New England town meeting, a form of government unique to our region, was considered by Norman Rockwell to be one of the purest expressions of free speech, immortalized in his famous series "The Four Freedoms."
But since the 1990s, some New Hampshire towns have abandoned their annual town meeting for election-day balloting at the polls on the second Tuesday in March. No one can deny that the Official Ballot Law of 1995, known as SB2, has led to larger voter turnout during town meeting season, but there's also no denying that something's been lost in the process.
Over the past two years, Sarah McPhee and Kirsten Durzy have heard scores of stories about Granite Stater’s lives during the pandemic. There was the new mom who delivered her child at the height of the pandemic; a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who had to muster a socially distanced support system; and the healthcare worker who spoke about his pain after caring for COVID victims.
Town Meeting is a quintessentially New England form of government tracing back to colonial times. Residents would gather together to discuss, debate, and vote on the biggest issues in town — especially how to spend money. While Town Meeting has evolved with the times, it still functions in much the same way as it did in the colonial era.
On this week’s episode of The State We’re In we discuss the ins and outs of Town Meeting with Jack Rooney, the Managing Editor for Audience Development at The Keene Sentinel, and Margaret Byrnes, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Municipal Association.
A picture is only worth a thousand words if the photographer did their job right. To do that, they need to see a scene as more than just a jumble of shadows and light. A good photojournalist knows they must try to accurately tell the story of a human being’s experience in that moment in time. Whether those experiences are triumphant or tragic, the photojournalist must capture the context and humanity with each quick click of a button in order to provide information that a written article alone may just not be able to on its own. It’s not easy and the camera is not a shield. The job can take a toll.
In this week’s episode, The Granite Beat’s hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart chat with seasoned photographer Gary Geoffroy, whose 40+ year career includes 12 years of freelancing in photography and videography for news outlets, most recently in the Lakes Region. Drapcho and Hart discuss with him what it’s like covering breaking, often traumatic news from behind the lens, how it compares to his decades as a firefighter, and who’s best suited for this line of work.
A warrant article asking the town for $13.1 million dollars will be voted on in March for renovations to the Wolfeboro Public Safety building. Wolfeboro’s police and fire chiefs say the upgrades are long overdue and desperately needed while some residents have expressed concerns about costs.
“The current building is far too out of date to keep up with the latest technologies,” said Police Chief Dean Rondeau, who added that he hopes voters will approve the major renovation and an addition to the current building. “Science and equipment has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. The equipment is bigger and heavier. The floors can’t handle it, the building can’t handle it. We’ve simply outgrown [the building].”
As mass shootings and deaths by suicide involving firearms become a greater part of the public conversation, journalists find themselves tasked with reporting on these issues while also providing context. While these topics are never easy to cover, the uneasiness some people feel about discussing these issues with reporters, and thus publicly, not only make that harder, but can make it more difficult for a variety of points of view and experiences from becoming part of that public discussion.
In this week’s episode The Granite Beat hosts Adam Drapcho and Julie Hart spoke with Sheryl Rich-Kern, a writer, editor, producer, and journalism instructor at Southern NH University, about her extensive career in the industry. She shared insights into her recent piece Guns and suicide: A search for common ground to save lives in New Hampshire and previewed what she’s working on next.
