Our Mission
MarylandReporter.com is a daily news website produced by journalists committed to making state government as open, transparent, accountable and responsive as possible – in deed, not just in promise. We believe the people who pay for this government are entitled to have their money spent in an efficient and effective way, and that they are entitled to keep as much of their hard-earned dollars as they possibly can. These taxpayers also expect their government:
- to aggressively protect public safety and public health;
- to act as the caregiver of last resort to care for the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the disabled, the abused and the victims of crime;
- to provide an adequate transportation infrastructure;
- to promote their state as a place that is business friendly and environmentally sound.
We believe that these goals should be pursued without waste, fraud or abuse and with approaches that do not automatically favor the government's involvement, funding and growth.
The editors, reporters and contributors to MarylandReporter.com will follow the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists as a model of journalism, and they will welcome the feedback of readers, viewers, sources and others who think they have not lived up to this ideal. As the preamble of the code states: "Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues."
That is the mission of MarylandReporter.com on state government and politics.
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Our organization
MarylandReporter.com, Inc. was incorporated in Maryland as a nonprofit organization Sept. 2, 2009 and was granted its exemption from federal income tax under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code Feb. 3, 2010.
MarylandReporter.com is supported by grants from foundations, by advertising, by contributions from donors and sponsors and by payments from other news organizations for customized content produced for them. All donations are tax deductible. We do not accept political advertising.
MarylandReporter.com was launched with the help of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, which has assisted us with grant-writing and sources of financial support and by connecting us with others who are working to produce reporting in the nonprofit model from statehouses around the country. The Franklin Center enhanced our reporting capacity during the legislative session in 2010 by providing two Benjamin Franklin Fellows, paid post-graduate journalists with degrees from Maryland schools.
Other news organizations which use our content include The Business Monthly, The Daily Record, Corridor Inc. magazine, WAMU and What’s Up—Annapolis. MarylandReporter.com is affiliated with the TBD.com Community Network.
MarylandReporter.com is a member of the National Newspaper Association, and its staff has memberships in the Society of Professional Journalists, the Online Media Association, CapitolBeat – the Association of Statehouse Reporters and Editors, and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
A copy of the current financial statement of MarylandReporter.com (IRS Form 990) is available by writing Len Lazarick, MarylandReporter.com Inc., 6392 Shadowshape Place, Columbia, MD 21045, by e-mailing Len@MarylandReporter.com, or by calling 410-312-9840. Documents and information submitted under the Maryland Solicitations Act are also available, for the cost of postage and copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis MD 21401, (410) 974-5534.
Our Staff
Len Lazarick is the editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com. He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its untimely demise in February.
In the 1980s, Len was State House chief and political editor of Patuxent Publishing, then a chain of 13 weeklies, and in 1997, was senior associate producer at Maryland Public Television for a C-Span-style coverage of State House hearings. He has been an editor at numerous publications large and small, including the national copy desk of The Washington Post for eight years, and from 1988 to 1996, he was managing editor of Patuxent Publishing's nine Baltimore County papers where he headed a staff of 30 editors, reporters and editorial assistants. Len spent eight years as the part-time news editor and political columnist for The Business Monthly circulating in Howard and Anne Arundel counties and was editor of the Trustee Quarterly for the national Association of Community College Trustees.
Len was a regular commentator on Baltimore talk radio (WYPR, WBAL, WEAA and WOLB). For six months in 2009, he was a visiting fellow for the Free State Foundation, a Maryland free-market think tank.
Len also spent a year as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He has taught Asian history at Montgomery College, Md., and state and local government at Howard Community College in Columbia, Md.
He is on the Advisory Board for the Mass Communications Department at Towson University. He is past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and is a member of both the Maryland and D.C. chapters of SPJ and Online News Association.
He can be reached at (410) 499-5893 or at Len@MarylandReporter.com.
Associate Editor Megan Poinski has almost a decade of experience in reporting and editing. After graduating from The George Washington University with her bachelor’s degree in journalism, she spent two years as a beat reporter at the Ashtabula Star Beacon in Ohio.
In 2003, Megan began a six-year stint at The Virgin Islands Daily News, based on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. During her years there, she covered the Virgin Islands territorial government, the federal government’s interactions with the territorial government, and the Fifth Virgin Islands Constitutional Convention. She also participated in several investigative projects, including one exposing government contracting fraud. This investigative project turned into a federal investigation, which ended in six conspirators —four former high ranking government officials — being convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to prison.
Megan has received several reporting awards throughout her career, most of them from Capitolbeat, the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. She also was the finalist for both the Scripps Howard Foundation’s Ursula and Gilbert Farfel Prize in Investigative Reporting, and the Associated Press Managing Editors Award for Public Service in 2005.
Megan is currently pursuing her master’s degree in information management at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies.
Contributing Editor Barbara Pash (right) is the former associate editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, where she covered state and local politics, from the governor’s office and state agencies to Baltimore City and County elected officials and departments.
Barbara set up and managed an Annapolis news bureau during the General Assembly sessions. She now writes for several publications and websites on topics as diverse as business, health and the environment. She has won over three dozen awards from professional organizations, including the Maryland-Delaware-D.C Press Association (MDDC), which gave her a 2008 MDDC award for state government coverage and a 2007 MDDC Best-In-Show award in the religion category.
Barbara is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Contributing Editor Cynthia Prairie has been a newspaper editor for more than 25 years. She has worked for the Raleigh Times, The Baltimore News American, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Prince George's Journal and Baltimore County newspapers in the Patuxent Publishing chain, including overseeing The Jeffersonian when it was a two-day a week business publication.
Cynthia has won numerous state awards, including the Maryland State Bar Association's Gavel Award.
Cynthia is a graduate of the Journalism School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.