We recently connected with Grant Smith-Ellis and have shared our conversation below.
Grant, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
During my career as a grassroots advocate and independent journalist, I have taken a number of risks; the most challenging is unfolding as we speaking, interestingly enough; a few months ago, in July of 2023, I was stripped of my press credentials by an agency of Massachusetts state government (the Cannabis Control Commission). That step was taken, according to the CCC, because of the content of my journalism and my testimony at a recent legislative hearing on Beacon Hill related to oversight of the CCC.
In light of that situation, I was put in a very difficult position as to how I was going to continue to go about my work – pursuing truth in the public interest. Nonetheless, over the past few months I have continued to seek answers about the CCC’s internal dynamics and I then took a monumental risk by being the first reporter to make public (on September 13th, 2023) that internal tensions within the CCC created a situation wherein a major state official (the state Treasurer) planned to fire the Chair of the agency (Shannon O’Brien) to prevent O’Brien from providing oversight of agency staff.
In particular, I took a huge risk by being the first journalist to break the news that O’Brien was subject to retaliation, apparently, because she was attempting to prevent a hand-picked transfer of power from agency Executive Director Shawn Collins to Agency Chief Communications Officer Cedric Sinclair.
That reporting can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89165627
And here; https://twitter.com/GrantSmithEllis/status/1701926254855766456
I knew full well that, by taking on the political establishment and rep0rting on this information, it was likely I would become a target for further retaliation by CCC staff. However, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune mean nothing to me when it comes to publishing information in furtherance of the public interest. In turn, when I was eventually attacked (the very next day) by CCC staff for my reporting, I was willing to stand up and defend my methods, my sources and my reporting from that (in my opinion) bad faith agency statement. My reply can be found here; https://twitter.com/GrantSmithEllis/status/1702405369236967760
As things stand, and although this situation is still unfolding, national outlets have begun to pick up the story and I have no doubt this act of retaliation directed at a journalist will only lead to further oversight of the CCC by other agencies of state and federal government.,
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
In 2014, I was a Graduate Student at Boston College student discourse theory when I sadly became disabled due to complications from a surgery. That surgery, from years earlier, reduced the elasticity of my skin and, in turn, caused my throat to begin collapsing and my facial/optic nerves to go haywire.
At the time I became disabled, I was an early pioneer of Natural Language Process (NBP) in the field of political philosophy. Specifically, I was developing a quantitative methodology to examine the cogency of public discourse as an indicator of political legitimacy in liberal republics (which is to say I was trying to create a visual model that would reflect, in real time, what the public and lawmakers were talking about online (with geo-based parameters on the state level, for example) – in turn allowing me to analyze the degree of overlap between those two spheres of discourse as an indicator of political legitimacy).
Being somewhat frustrated that I was unable to continue that work after becoming disabled, at least in the field of academia, I began looking for another outlet to express my passion for the cogency of public discourse and the integrity of the lawmaking process. I was, thankfully, able to find that outlet in the form of independent journalism. That Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffans, Henry D. Lloyd and S.S. McClure were personal heroes from my youth (in particular Ida Tarbell’s insatiable commitment to uncovering the evils of J.D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company) was also, perhaps, a sign that I had found my vocation.
Over the past seven years, I have honed my skills as a journalist across a number of platforms including broadcast journalism (I provide real-time commentary on regulatory hearings via livestreams on Facebook.com/GrantSmithEllis each month), written journalism (my work appears on Patreon.com/GrantSmithEllis and has been cited in a number of major national, regional and local publications), and social media.
In particular, I have pioneered a new form of free-to-access news that relies heavily on grassroots distributions via social media and digital word-of-mouth. In turn, I also have been able to pioneer a unique form of hyper-independent news that answers only to the demands of truth, justice and informed public discourse. With no sponsors (I only accept donations), and an editor as willing to take on risks as myself, there is no topic I am afraid to cover (and no person too powerful to be featured therein).
With that said; I realize it is a privilege to be able to take such risks, and speak openly without fear of reprisal. In turn, I do everything my power to wield my platform on behalf of those who would otherwise be voiceless. To do otherwise, in my opinion, would be to disgrace the profession of investigative journalism.
I also am honored to be a volunteer captain with the Patreon A.Club program, where I am grateful to be able to meet weekly with my fellow members of the Disabled Content Creators A.Club. I struggled for many years finding my voice as a disabled creator, and meeting other people who face/faced similar challenges has been an experience that has fundamentally redefined how I approach so many challenges in my day to day life. I would not be able to do the work that I do in the absence of the support I get from the peer network, and I’m grateful to the entire team at Patreon (in particular the A.Club and Community Team) for allowing me to be involved in such a wonderful program.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I first began working in the field of grassroots journalism, I was volunteering under a mentor who had been around in the industry for roughly a decade before I came along. Over time, it became clear to me that the person in question was exploiting me for my free labor (I always have enjoyed providing free information to the public and have never used paywalls) and, were I to branch out on my own, they would seek to punish me for doing so.
Nonetheless, I did go out on my own starting in 2020 and, as expected, I was subject to a year-long campaign of emotional abuse as a result.
I did not stand down, however, and I continued to make a name for myself in the industry as a source of information unwilling to cower in the face of subtle economic usurpation. As angry as that made stakeholders (who would otherwise charge clients big bucks for access to the inf0rmation I provide for free), I only became more committed to that principle after witnesses just how much of our political system is corrupted simply because the average person is unable to interact with the complex process of drafting a law and then implementing that law via a regulatory framework.
While I have taken a number of slings and arrows, as mentioned, for being willing to shine that light on an otherwise obfuscated evil, I am still standing, still reporting and still speaking truth to power to this day.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Over time, I think I developed a reputation as someone willing to go to bat for the vulnerable (regardless as to personal consequences, or dangers, of pressures for myself) and someone willing to ask tough questions even when powerful people would rather that information be kept for the public.
I believe my willingness to pursue truth, regardless as to where that path leads, and eschew traditional means of financing that would otherwise create conflicts-of-interest, drove that reputation for the most part (along with my record of breaking news stories days before the information was made fully public).
Contact Info:
- Website: Patreon.com/GrantSmithEllis
- Instagram: Instagram.com/GrantSmithEllis
- Facebook: Facebook.com/GrantSmithEllis
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-smith-ellis-6762aa208/
- Twitter: Twitter.com/GrantSmithEllis
Image Credits
Image credit; Grant Smith-Ellis (used with permission).