Wednesday, February 19, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

William P. Densmore

Bill Densmore, a consultant and researcher on the future and sustainability of journalism, is an expert on Internet information technologies and business models with financial-budget experience for conferences, grant-funded university projects, and entrepreneurial businesses. He is a consulting fellow to the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) at the Missouri School of Journalism. He is author of the white paper, “From Paper to Persona.” In a career spanning news writing, journalism, publishing, entrepreneurship, fund-raising and event management, branding and outreach, Densmore has founded and lead two technology companies and a regional newspaper publisher. Amherst, Mass.-basedClickshare Service Corp. provides user registration, authentication, content access control and transaction services to Internet web content sites and publishers. CircLabs Inc. is a development-stage startup incubated as part of Densmore’s Information Valet Project at RJI. It’s testing service concepts for news personalization and customization, including the InfoValet Circulate Discovery Service. He also co-owned and published the Advocate newsweeklies for the Berkshires/southwestern Vermont, from 1983-1992. Densmore he has taught and guest lectured, and has been principal organizer of more than a dozen regional and national conferences and symposia on the future of journalism and the intersections among journalists and librarians, technologists and media-literacy educators. Densmore also serves as director/editor of the Media Giraffe Project at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the New England News Forum. He’s a founding member and director of Journalism That Matters, Inc. and also serves on the boards of the New England Newspaper & Press Association and Shires Media Partnership, Inc. He served a three-year term on the board of the Action Coalition for Media Education. The Media Giraffe Project, launched in March, 2005, is an ongoing effort to find and spotlight individuals making sustainable, innovative use of media (old and new) to foster participatory democracy and community. A career journalist, Densmore has been an editor/writer for The Associated Press in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco and for trade publications in business, law, insurance and information-technology in Boston, Chicago and New York. He freelanced for general circulation dailies including The Boston Globe and, while in Chicago, for National Public Radio and worked for public-radio stations in Worcester and Amherst while a college student. He has written for ComputerWorld Magazine. Since 1995, he has been quoted and cited in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other publications on Internet topics and has lectured on journalism issues at the University of Massachusetts, Williams College, Brandeis University, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the Missouri School of Journalism and at numerous conferences. Densmore has also served as advertising director for a small, group-owned daily, editorial director for a chain of central Massachusetts weeklies; and as interim executive director of the not-for-profit Hancock Shaker Village, a living-history museum. Densmore holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in environmental policy and communications. Densmore Associates provides project and event management services, writing research and market intelligence to companies, universities and individuals concerned with the changing media ecosystem.

written articles

Lyme disease: ‘Public health time bomb’ in the Berkshires environment

In her book, 'Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change,' Mary Beth Pfeiffer presents evidence from all viewpoints, but her narrative sides with those who distrust the Lyme disease tests, seek more expansive – and expensive -- therapies, and believe Lyme is a tragic long-term problem for thousands of victims. She argues government underfunding of Lyme research is a scandal and current treatment flawed.

News Brief: Williams College seeks soil samples from Water Street site

A year ago some 300 people signed petitions opposed to an initial location the college was reviewing as a possibility for the museum building – at Southworth and Main streets.

Local investors buy The Berkshire Eagle; pledge return of quality journalism

‘We believe that if a newspaper is alert and lively in its news columns, if it covers the happenings of the community fairly and completely, if it is open and forthright in its editorial opinion, it will have the respect of its readers and will be an effective advertising medium for those who use to use its columns.” -- Lawrence K. “Pete” Miller, whose family founded the Berkshire Eagle
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