In response to feedback from participants in listening tour workshops held across Maine this year, the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, the nonprofit publisher of The Maine Monitor, announced the launch of a new initiative to provide people in towns in western and downeast Maine with a new source for news about their communities: Monitor Local.
“In parts of Maine where no local paper exists and no local reporters keep people informed of town developments, specifically in rural places, people told us they feel disenfranchised. They described being unable to cast informed votes at the polls and unaware of decisions by local leaders,” said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, executive director of MCPIR. “We couldn’t stand by and let that happen.”
Monitor Local will be led by well-known Maine journalist Judy Meyer, most recently editor of the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel newspapers.
Meyer will work with a team of Monitor Local correspondents reporting across Oxford, Franklin, Somerset and Washington counties to provide people the news they need to be engaged and empowered to participate in their town discussions and decisions, including town council meetings, school budget debates, zoning conversations, tax deliberations and more.
The reporting from Monitor Local will appear in two regional newsletters, Western Maine Monitor and Downeast Monitor, that are published each Saturday.
These two newsletters will continue to feature The Maine Monitor’s investigative and in-depth reporting, as well as a curated look at regional news from other outlets, but will now expand to include Monitor Local reporting on towns across Oxford, Franklin, Somerset, and Washington counties.
Monitor Local’s first stories will appear on Saturday, November 1.
This initiative is made possible with grant support from Journalism New England, a startup non-profit organization working to build and sustain local news and ensure that local news organizations are supported with the kinds of tailored problem-solving, partnerships and funding they need to succeed.
