MAINE
Naomi Schalit, co-founder of the Hallowell-based Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, is retiring to pursue independent writing projects. She was the senior reporter for the nonprofit Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting in the Maine statehouse. Before that, Schalit was publisher and executive director of the center. Her husband, John Christie, who co-founded the center with her in 2009, is continuing to work with the center as consulting editor. Schalit won two Publick Occurrences awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association while at the center, for “LD 1750: A study in how special interests get their way in the Maine Legislature,” and, with Christie, “RX for theft,” about pharmacists who engage in the theft of the drugs. Earlier in her career, Schalit was opinion editor at the Kennebec Journal of Augusta and the Morning Sentinel of Waterville. She gained national recognition for a series on hunger in Maine. She also has been recognized for her work as a reporter-producer for Maine Public Radio, as a writer for the former Maine Times, and as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News.
The Transitions were written, at least in part, from published reports by Bulletin correspondent Nimra Aziz, an undergraduate student in the Northeastern University School of Journalism.