A sticky note shows the year 2026, and a sticky note shows the year 2025 crossed out, symbolizing the transition to a new year in Athens, Greece, on December 24, 2025. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
With the new year just beginning, I want to take a moment to talk about some of MassLive’s goals for 2026.
Rest assured, we will continue to expand as the premier statewide source of news, high school sports, pro sports and much more. We launched our expansion efforts nearly three years ago, and we’ve built the largest audience digitally across the region.
MassLive.com really picked up speed in December when the traffic to our site doubled compared to the previous year. That’s an especially amazing achievement given the headwinds facing local news. Hats off to the entire MassLive team.
I was particularly proud of our newsroom for the outstanding coverage of the tragic events at Brown University. For even more validation, our partners at Apple News chose our coverage to lead their home screen during the aftermath of the tragedy.
Many readers encounter us through our trending news coverage. A special congratulations to reporters David Cifarelli and Dallas Gagnon, who, together, reached more than 20 million pageviews in 2025. It’s a remarkable achievement and a testament to their hard work.
While it’s critically important for MassLive to serve a large and growing audience, we also want to have a lasting impact. Our mission is to strengthen and empower communities across Massachusetts by providing the news and information people need to be involved and informed citizens.
I can’t give away all our plans for 2026, but I can share with you some of the themes and ideas that we’re working on as we continue to grow across the region.
Expand Our Reach and Deepen Engagement
While we already have the largest digital audience for news in the region, there’s still so much more for us to cover. Watch for us to continue to expand in key areas, such as high school sports and education, in the coming year. For example, we have exciting plans to pilot coverage of K-12 education in Worcester County.
Achieve Journalistic Excellence
With every article we publish, we aim to be fast, accurate, useful and insightful. We saw this in 2025 with stories such as our coverage of the Gabriel House fire in Fall River and our follow-up reporting on the aftereffects of the scathing DOJ report from a year ago that detailed sexual abuse by Worcester police officers against sex workers. We are always striving for excellence.
Experiment with Innovative Revenue Streams
To fulfill our mission, we need to have a strong business model. This is why we’re experimenting with new ways to monetize our content, such as expanding our opportunities to sponsor our coverage of big events like the World Cup this year. In this instance, we’re partnering with El Planeta, the state’s largest Spanish-language news site, to offer our coverage in Spanish and English.
Strategic Partnerships and Events
We continue to cultivate news partners from across the region, which helps to expand our coverage areas. On the events front, we launched The Vineyard Forum with our news partner at the Vineyard Gazette last year, and we’re already busy at work planning for the summer of 2026 with an expanded agenda that will bring together fabulous guests and a wider audience to tackle some of the most important issues facing the region and beyond.
We also set internal goals around maintaining a strong culture of support, innovation and inclusion. Part of what makes MassLive a special place is the volunteer work we do together across the state. For example, in the Western part of the state, we’ll continue to work with The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts as well as our student education efforts with our friends at New England Public Media.
In Worcester, we will continue to help out at the Regional Environmental Council’s Earth Day event. In Boston, we’ll expand our efforts to help our friends at Haley House, where we’ve volunteered in the food pantry and soup kitchen.
Lastly, while I’m proud of our growth, I’m also buoyed by the fact that Massachusetts continues to be a hotbed for news sites. The Boston Globe, under my friend and fellow Bates Alumni Brian McGory, who has rejoined the paper as the editor, will no doubt continue their tradition of excellence, but we also have a strong tradition of hyper local news outlets such the Dorchester Reporter and a bevy of new non-profit players like Brookline News.
The stronger the news ecosystem across the region, the better off we all will be.
MassLive is positioned for great things in 2026. I hope you are, too! And please, as always, write me at jmacht@masslive.com with your comments and suggestions.
