Boston journalist, JP resident documents '99 Nights' with Occupy movement

(Write to Power Books)

Chris Faraone

Boston.com Staff

A local award-winning political journalist from Jamaica Plain will release a book next month detailing his visits to protest camps across the country during the first three months of the Occupy movement that began in mid-September.

(Write to Power Books)

The 224-page book will include recently-completed, unpublished reporting, along with features Faraone published in the Phoenix, from Occupy camps in 10 cities that Faraone visited during the first three-months of the movement that spawned near Wall Street in New York City and spread as camps formed in municipalities nationwide to protest corporate greed, wealth imbalance, and money’s sway on politics.

The author, whose approach to covering the protests was profiled by the Columbia Journalism Review in December, visited: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Oakland / San Francisco. The book features additional reporting on Occupy Los Angeles, the 2012 New Hampshire GOP Primary, and the hacker group known as Anonymous and its “war on Scientology.”

Woven through the book will be "exclusive photographs and illustrations" and a series of haikus Faraone wrote and calls "Occupaikus."

"Although Faraone is an unabashed left-winger, he writes with a reporter's objective, unflinching and investigative eye. Over the course of Occupy’s first three months, he refused to play favorites, engaging and – at times – aggravating readers of all political stripes," said a press release from the book’s publisher, Write To Power Books, which Faraone founded.

"Occupy Wall Street was the biggest news story of 2011," the release added. "Faraone followed the movement like a storm chaser, standing out among some of the movement's most unique activist and journalistic voices. He is one of the rare few who gained the trust of the Occupiers as he blogged about OWS on a daily basis. But he also stepped back to investigate and analyze the protest from a bigger-picture perspective, through in-depth weekly features."

Born and raised in Queens, N.Y., Faraone earned a bachelor’s degree from Hobart College. He earned a master’s in journalism from Boston University in 2004.

He’s reported for The Source, Spin, the Boston Herald, the Weekly Dig and Boston Magazine. He joined the Phoenix staff four years ago.

Since 2009, he has received accolades and awards from the Association of Alternative News Media and the New England Newspaper & Press Association for his investigative and news reporting.

"His work digs deep, explains Occupy operations in a variety of settings, and gets to know the characters who make the movement tick," the publisher's press release said. "Along the way, he landed nationwide exclusives, including a major scoop on an underground legion of police who support OWS [Occupy Wall Street]"

The book will sell for $14.99 as a print paperback and $9.99 as an e-book. For more information click here and here.

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