Naomi Schalit

127 posts

Naomi Schalit is a co-founder of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, which operates The Maine Monitor.

She has written for magazines and newspapers around the country, worked as a columnist for the Maine Times and for five years was a reporter and producer at Maine Public. Naomi won many awards for her radio reporting, including one from Public Radio News Directors for her exposé of a historic state conservation deal gone bad.

In April 2005, she joined the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel as its opinion page editor. In 2007, she won first place in the New England AP News Editors’ competition for editorial writing, was a recipient of a Publick Occurrences Award from the New England Newspaper Association, received honorable mention accolades for the Anna Quindlen Award, was runner-up for Casey Journalism Awards and won first place for editorial writing in the National Sigma Delta Chi Awards, all for her multi-part editorial series on hunger in Maine, “For I Was Hungry.” That series also earned her the first “Force for Good” award given by the Portland nonprofit Preble Street.

Contact Naomi via email: moc.l1755199035iamg@1755199035godhc1755199035tawee1755199035rteni1755199035p1755199035

Legislators use timing and creative wording to skirt spirit of fundraising rules

An examination of campaign records and fundraising techniques shows how Maine statehouse politicians have found creative ways ways to skirt the spirit of laws meant to limit the influence of special interests.

ByNaomi Schalit

March 29, 2017

sign denoting the work area is contaminated with lead paint

New bill proposes contractor training, certifications to reduce lead poisoning

Seeking to reduce the instances of Mainers getting lead poisoning due to careless renovations, a lawmaker introduced a proposal to require EPA training and certification in lead-safe removal methods for contractors working on older buildings.

ByNaomi Schalit

March 8, 2017

the doorway to the meeting room for the joint standing committee on veterans and legal affairs

Lawmaker: PACs shouldn’t pay the legislators who run them

Saying he wanted to stop a practice that was “the closest thing to getting directly paid” by lobbyists, Rep. Louis Luchini introduced a bill to bar legislators from paying themselves, businesses they run and family members from political action committees they control.

ByNaomi Schalit

February 27, 2017

Economist Isabel Sawhill in her office at the Brookings Institution

In-Depth: The full interview with Isabel Sawhill

When senior reporter Naomi Schalit began her nine months of research for our series on Maine’s single parents in poverty, one of her first stops was Isabel Sawhill’s office at the Brookings Institution. You’ll find many quotes from Sawhill in Schalit’s five-part series; here is the complete interview transcript.

ByNaomi Schalit

October 30, 2016

a mother and young son with overlayed text reading single parents in poverty: the crisis no one will name

The story behind the story: Why single parents in poverty opened up

I have been a reporter for 34 years and this was the hardest story I have ever written. People didn’t want to talk to me. They didn’t want to give me “fodder for woman-blaming.”

ByNaomi Schalit

October 27, 2016

a mother wraps her arm around her son while he eats

500% rise in single parenthood fueling family poverty in Maine

A nine-month investigation reveals that the inability to lower the poverty rate in Maine is due in part to a change in the makeup of the state’s families.

ByNaomi Schalit

October 26, 2016

a silhouette image of a mother and her young child

One wrong guy and an ‘endless struggle’ for a single mom

Part 2: The story of one single mother speaks to the struggles shared by many single parents in Maine. “Every week’s the same,” she said. “I’m always broke. The electric, internet, diapers, toiletries, food when we run out of my food card…”

ByNaomi Schalit

October 26, 2016