Ben Berke

South Coast Bureau Reporter

Based in New Bedford, Ben staffs our South Coast Bureau desk. He covers anything that happens in Fall River, New Bedford, and the surrounding towns, as long as it’s a good story. His assignments have taken him to jails, factories, city halls, fishing vessels, bakeries, environmental cleanup sites and the homes of hundreds of interview subjects. Ben joined the bureau in February 2021 after three years in Brockton reporting for The Enterprise. His freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Providence Journal. When he’s not working, Ben can often be found near the beach hiking, surfing and collecting the strange things that wash ashore.

bberke@ripr.org

Recently published
Gov. Dan McKee revised a previous plan to eliminate bus routes and instead proposed service reductions on 46 of the system’s 58 routes
A federal agency issued a stop-work order affecting Orsted’s Revolution Wind farm on Friday afternoon, citing unspecified national security concerns
The proposed service reductions would affect 58 bus routes in total, eliminating 17 of those routes entirely
Rhode Island environmental officials have been battling the spread of the sacred lotus at Meshanticut State Park for over a decade
After Providence police officers were filmed at the scene of an ICE arrest over the weekend, Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez held a press conference to defend his department’s actions