• by Ray Schultz , August 11, 2021

 Veteran Maine journalist Eric Conrad has assumed the roles of editor and executive director of the nonprofit Maine Monitor. 

Conrad replaces Dan Dinsmore, who held the reigns for over three years, the Monitor reports. During his watch, the Monitor covered topics such as Maine’s judicial public defense system and the pandemic.

“Big shoes to fill,” Conrad says. “The most important thing is for our staff to advance the Monitor’s well-earned reputation for fearless investigative and explanatory journalism that Maine readers and donors deserve and expect.” 

Conrad hopes to uphold the values set in 2009 when the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, which operates the Monitor, was established by his friends and former colleagues John Christie and Naomi Schalit.

Conrad, Schalit and Christie were editor and publisher colleagues at the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel newspapers in Maine from 2006 to 2009. In addition, Conrad and Christie worked together in the 1980s and 1990s at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel website and newspaper. And he and Dinsmore are no strangers. 

“It’s a privilege and challenge to take the baton from Dan, who I recruited to Maine back in 2001, when we worked together at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram,” Conrad says. 

Conrad most recently served as director of communication and educational services at the Maine Municipal Association.