*Note this month’s meeting has been moved to the second Wednesday of the month.*
All are welcome! Please join us, we are always happy to get new folks involved with the work of protecting our democracy and building our resilient community, regardless of where you live.
This month, Indivisible Hingham Hull is honored to host Candy and Robert Thomson, journalists who will discuss the current state of the legacy media and the dramatic changes over the past decades: how did they happen, where we are now, and what we–as news consumers–can do to inform ourselves in this fast-paced age of information/disinformation.
The discussion about today’s news scene will touch on all aspects of coverage, from the global sweep of the New York Times and the BBC to the more focused regional coverage of the Boston Globe and WBUR to the vital news coverage of Main Street by outlets like the Hingham Anchor and the Hull Times. Taken together, these organizations strive to keep their readers informed and their communities vibrant.
About Candy & Robert
Candy Thomson graduated from Emerson College when it was on the other side of Boston Common.
She worked in radio news and small newspapers in New Hampshire for more than a decade, covering everything from state and local government to four New Hampshire presidential primaries.
She was deputy business editor at the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time in Connecticut, before moving to the Baltimore Sun as a copy editor, features writer, local bureau chief, and sports reporter and columnist. She covered five Olympics.
Before retiring, she spent five years as chief spokeswoman for Maryland Natural Resources Police and Maryland State Parks.
Since retiring, she’s edited a Baltimore history book, served as media manager for the World University Games, an Olympic-like event that attracted 1,800 college-aged athletes from around the world.
She is the elected constable of the Town of Sandwich, writes a politics column for a local weekly newspaper and volunteers as a town election official.
Robert Thomson began a career in newswriting and editing in 1968 at his college paper, The Stony Brook Statesman on Long Island, New York. He ended his ink-stained work life as a local columnist for The Washington Post in 2017.
He earned his first paycheck at The Register, a weekly paper in his hometown of Staten Island, New York, and later worked for the daily Reporter Dispatch in the suburbs north of New York City and at Newsday, the tabloid daily in New York City and Long Island. In 1988, he got an editing job on the City Desk of The Washington Post.
Thomson remembers when “cut and paste” involved sheets of paper, a pair of scissors, a pot of glue and a daily deadline. By the time he left The Post, deadlines came every few minutes. The transmission methods were laptops and cellphones, and the outlets were websites, blogs and social media accounts.
