The Maine Monitor and its publisher, The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, are pleased to welcome a new addition to the independent, nonprofit news organization.
Adrienne Washington, an award-winning investigative journalist, joins the newsroom today as a Roy W. Howard Fellow through the Scripps Howard Fund. She will focus her reporting on Maine’s rural communities.
Washington won an EPPY award from Editor & Publisher Magazine for her contributions to a Howard Center for Investigative Journalism project that examined the spread of an ideology among sheriffs that they must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or unjust.
Washington earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in diversity studies from the University of Washington, where she was awarded the Pioneer News Group award for her work covering income, gender and language barriers in the Seattle area. She holds a master’s degree in investigative journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
Her work has been featured in the Associated Press, The Seattle Times, The Los Angeles Times, ABC News and Cronkite News, as well as in local reporting outlets in the Puget Sound and metro Phoenix area.
Meanwhile, Emmett Gartner is shifting from the rural reporting beat to the environmental beat for The Monitor.
Gartner joined a year ago as a Roy W. Howard Fellow through the Scripps Howard Fund, focusing on accountability and Maine’s rural communities.
Since joining the newsroom, Gartner has written stories about rural communities debating the future of their dams and investigated numerous environmental violations across the state.
He earned his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Vermont.
While working as a reporter at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, he helped produce two award-winning investigations: “Printing Hate,” which documented the historic role of newspapers inciting racial lynchings; and “Mega Billions,” which investigated state lottery operations.
Gartner previously reported on health and environment for The Frederick News-Post in Maryland.