Portland Press Herald Podcast

Portland Press Herald staff writer Ray Routhier sat down with Pat Callaghan and Cindy Williams to chat about their careers during a live event on Tuesday, August 22 at One Longfellow Square. About our guests Pat Callaghan began his broadcast journalism career in 1978 at New Hampshire Public Television. Beginning in 1979, he spent 43 years as a news anchor and reporter for NEWS CENTER Maine (WCSH6 in Portland and WLBZ2 in Bangor). Notable stories along the way included being on the air live when the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1986, and reporting from Belfast, Northern Ireland when former Maine Sen. George Mitchell chaired the talks that culminated in the Good Friday Agreement. Pat spent much of his time covering politics and government, with extensive reporting from Washington, DC and Augusta, as well as covering Maine’s delegations at numerous national political conventions. He produced documentaries on notable Maine figures including Ed Muskie, Bill Cohen, Olympia Snowe and George Mitchell. Pat hol

Portland Press Herald Food and Books Editor Peggy Grodinsky sat down with Chelsea Conaboy to chat about her newest book, that draws on the latest neuroscience and social psychology and weaves it together with new reporting to tell a powerful new narrative of parenthood. Conaboy talks about the myth of maternal instinct, how parenthood changes the brain for the long haul, and what it all means for our social policies, our understanding of caregiving broadly and our sense of ourselves during a live "Maine Voices Live" at the Portland Museum of Art. Chelsea Conaboy is a health and science journalist. She was part of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning team for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, and she was features editor at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for three years. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Politico, the Boston Globe Magazine, WBUR, The Philadelphia Inquirer and others. Her first book, Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewri

Rachel Ohm, the lead reporter covering Portland’s influx of asylum seekers for the Press Herald, led this Newsroom Live virtual event on Tuesday, May 30. Read the Press Herald series “Long Way Home” at pressherald.com/longwayhome. On the panel: Mufalo Chitam, Executive Director, Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition Kristen Dow, Director of Health & Human Services, City of Portland Ninette Irabaruta, Director of Public Policy and Advocacy, United Way of Southern Maine

Many Maine-based companies have footprints beyond the state border, even when “the Maine brand” is a big part of their corporate identities. How do these companies keep their cultural or physical roots in the state, especially if they’re adding locations outside of it? What tools and strategies are they using to elevate their brand and leverage their Maine ties? Join our panel conversation to start thinking of affinities that go beyond traditional markets. Business Editor Will Hall sat down with Scott MacLeod from The VIA Agency, Jenny Kordick from Maine Outdoor Brands and Colleen Croteau from Maine Beer Company to discuss their strategies on Thursday, April 20 for a panel discussion at University of New England’s Innovation Hall on Stevens Avenue in Portland.

President of The Boulos Company, Jessica Estes sat down with Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute at Northeastern University on Tuesday, April 4.   More information at pressherald.com

President and CEO of Central Maine Power, Joe Purington sat down with Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute on Wednesday, March 1. About Joe Purington Joe Purington was appointed President and CEO of Central Maine Power (CMP) in September 2021. CMP serves approximately 646,000 electricity customers in an 11,000 square-mile service area in central and southern Maine. The appointment brings Purington home to Maine and to CMP where he began his career in utility operations.

Ryan Adams is a Portland Maine artist, born and raised, where he lives with his artist and designer wife and their two daughters. His background in traditional graffiti led him to creating large-scale mural work as well as hand lettered design and signage. His signature ‘gem’ style of work is a geometric breakdown of letterforms with shadows and highlights incorporated in order to create depth and movement. His work often including statements within them that addresses introspective or cultural issues. Currently, Ryan owns and operates a mural and signage company along with exploring and exhibiting his ‘gem’ style work in exterior and interior spaces. More information (and video) at https://www.pressherald.com/2022/12/07/maine-voices-live-with-ryan-adams/

A panel of journalists from The Portland Press Herald, the Sun Journal, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel share memories of covering the epic Ice Storm of 1998, of the people they met and stories they found. Panelists include Judy Meyer, executive editor of the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel, retired Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, Morning Sentinel reporter and columnist Amy Calder and Press Herald photographer Greg Rec. Press Herald staff writer Kelley Bouchard  moderates the discussion.    

Portland Press Herald staff writer Eric Russell talks with Morgan Talty about his new book, Night of the Living Rez during a virtual conversation on Tuesday, December 6. Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. He is the author of the story collection Night of the Living Rez from Tin House Books, and his work has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere.

Should social media even be in your advertising budget in 2023? From navigating targeting capabilities to tracking brand safety on turbulent platforms, it takes insight to design an effective strategy. Join moderator Carol Coultas and social media experts Dan Reed of SCORE, Izzy Siedman of flyte new media and Nathan O’Leary of Mainely SEO to learn how to create a successful campaign that’s worth your time.

Portland Press Herald food writer Peggy Grodinsky talks with Tara Jensen about her new book, Flour Power. About Tara Tara Jensen is the author of A Baker’s Year and the just published Flour Power. She grew up in Naples, Maine, attended Lake Region High School and graduated from College of the Atlantic. Jensen has baked professionally for over 20 years, including at Red Hen Baking in Vermont; and Farm & Sparrow and Carolina Ground, both in North Carolina. She also ran her own tiny, wood-fired bakery, Smoke Signals in North Carolina. Her gorgeous breads and pies have been featured in publications such as Food & Wine and Bon Appétit and her beautiful Instagram account, @bakerhands, has more than 100,000 followers. Today, Jensen teaches baking workshops in Virginia, where she lives with her husband and toddler daughter. Her approach to baking marries the technical with the intuitive.

President of Baxter Brewing, Jenn Lever joined Portland Press Herald CEO Lisa DeSisto for a conversation at The Roux Institute. Jenn is an Auburn, Maine native who graduated from Edward Little High School in 2004, and then attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges, earning a BA in Economics and Sociology. In 2008, Lever ignited her career in the Food & Beverage Industry when she accepted a Warehouse Supervisor role with Pepsi Co. Her upward trajectory included successive leadership positions that took her from New York to Virginia, before returning to Maine in 2014, where she worked for three years in fresh cut vegetable processing with the Curran Company, later Growers Express. She left the role as President to take on a Director of Operations position with Baxter Brewing in 2017 and in September of 2019 she was promoted to President of Baxter Brewing. In her very first year as President, she led Baxter Brewing through the COVID-19 pandemic, launching a successful rebrand and expanding distribution whil

Question A, proposed by a group of short-term rental operators, seeks to limit corporate owners from registering short-term rentals. Question B, one of the questions proposed by the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, would reduce the number of short-term rentals. Both groups oppose the other’s proposal and a third group, Enough Is Enough, opposes both – and every other question on the ballot. How much of an effect do short-term rentals have on Portland’s rental market? How important are short-term rentals to our local economy? Join us for answers to these questions and many more.

Video of this event is available here: https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/30/maine-voices-live-with-bill-nemitz/ Bill Nemitz Bill Nemitz has worked as a journalist in Maine since 1977, when he became a reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He moved to Portland in 1983, working first as a reporter for the Evening Express and later as a city editor and assistant managing editor/sports for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. He began writing his column in 1995. While focusing on Maine people and issues, his work has taken him three times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with members of the Maine Army National Guard and the Army Reserve; to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Peace Accord; to Manhattan for the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; to the Gulf Coast for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Nemitz is a

Like a Boss conversation between Lisa DeSisto, Publisher of the Portland Press Herald and CEO of Masthead Maine and Andrew Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth on Friday, April 29, 2022

Brian Ross–or Chef Brian, as he’s known around Hampden, where he lives–started the Facebook group Quarantine Kitchen in March 2020 so people could share pantry recipes during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. His network of foodie friends around Maine signed on as charter members. Two weeks later, the group had 8,000 members. Now with 11,000 members from 75 countries, Ross’s Quarantine Kitchen sustains itself with a steady supply of home cooking photos and kind words for each other’s efforts. Portland Press Herald food and dining reporter Tim Cebula talks with Ross about the feel-good stories coming out of the Quarantine Kitchen.

From tips on how to identify native Maine species to the best locations in Maine to find the most exciting birds, Maine Audubon Naturalist and Press Herald nature columnist Doug Hitchcox shares his vast knowledge in a lively discussion with outdoors reporter Deirdre Fleming.

About the partnership No news organization is more invested in the health of the Gulf of Maine and the region’s residents than the Portland Press Herald and The Boston Globe. So, as the gulf’s warming waters pose an increasingly existential threat to Maine’s signature industry, lobster, we joined forces to take a hard look at the climate crisis unfolding on our shores. We descended on the island of Vinalhaven, one of Maine’s busiest fishing villages, and turned loose reporters, photographers and videographers from both news organizations to learn firsthand the challenges, stresses, and fears of those facing this uniquely perilous time for lobstering. The problems posed by the warming waters were sometimes subtle — the slow migration of whales and lobsters, the gradual rise in sea levels. The tensions and stakes were glaring. Climate change gravely threatens the nation’s richest fishery and the communities that depend on it. The result is The Lobster Trap, presented here today. It is a story of a group of Main

After 33 years at the Portland Press Herald, reporter Meredith Goad is retiring and moving back to her childhood home of Tennessee. She talked with food editor Peggy Grodinsky about how the food and drinks scene in Portland, and Maine, has exploded over the 15 + years she has chronicled it, from Sam Hayward’s 2004 James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef Northeast (the first such award for Maine) to the growing farm-to-table movement, through the trials and tribulations for Maine’s restaurants and other food establishments  during the COVID-19 pandemic. Find out what she’ll miss – and won’t – about eating in Maine, and just see what happens if you ask her about her favorite restaurant.

Since Robert Indiana’s death in 2018, Portland Press Herald arts reporter Bob Keyes has been covering the complicated saga surrounding the “LOVE” artist’s life and legacy. But there were more notes and conversations than what made it into print. During the pandemic, Bob spent much of his downtime putting the vast knowledge he’s amassed into his first book, “The Isolation Artist,” released Sept. 7.