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.
Andy Rosen and Len Lazarick
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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.
Even after the demise of the Examiner, Len was a regular commentator on Baltimore talk radio (WBAL, WEAA and WOLB) as well as a Baltimore cable TV news show, ReportersRoundtable.com. From March through August, 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.
He can be reached at (410) 499-5893 or at Len@MarylandReporter.com.
Associate Editor: Andy Rosen is the associate editor of MarylandReporter.com. Andy covered Maryland government, politics and business for three years as the State House reporter for The Daily Record, Baltimore’s century-old newspaper of record for the legal and business community. As the senior business writer, he followed energy, finance and transportation, and created and wrote The Daily Record's "Eye on Annapolis," the newspaper first and only individual staff blog. His coverage of the rapid increase in regional energy surcharges was honored by the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association for best energy coverage in its class.
Andy also spent a year covering a wide range of topics for the Brattleboro Reformer, a six-day daily with Vermont’s third largest circulation. His beats included state and local politics, land use and development, education, cops, courts and business. He also interned at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Mass. as a writer covering higher education for this academic community that includes four well-known colleges – Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and Hampshire – and the flagship University of Massachusetts at Amherst, from which he graduated with a degree in journalism and political economy.
In addition to reporting and editing duties, Andy is the technical chief at MarylandReporter.com with specialties in multimedia and social networking
He can be reached at (978) 376-6231 or Andy@MarylandReporter.com.
Staff Writer: Erich Wagner covered the 2009 General Assembly session for the University of Maryland's Capital News Service. Wagner grew up in Carroll County and has written for The Diamondback, and interned at the Baltimore Sun and the City Paper. He graduated from the university's College Park campus in January, 2010.
Erich can be reached at (443) 789-0488 or Erich@MarylandReporter.com
Staff Writer: Nick DiMarco is a recent graduate from Towson University with a degree in mass communication and certificate in broadcast journalism. He worked as a reporter and became senior editor of The Towerlight, has been an intern at both WBAL Radio and the Baltimore City Paper. In 2008 he earned two Mark of Excellence awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Region 2. Nick specializes in multimedia coverage.
Nick can be reached at (410) 491-4123 or Nick@MarylandReporter.com