Matthew Stone covers state government and politics from the BDN’s State House bureau in Augusta.A graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., Stone started his reporting career in 2008 with the Kennebec Journal in Augusta. In three years there, Stone covered a range of education, business and local news stories and started the publication’s first education blog, The Report Card. He was honored with the Bob Drake Young Writers Award from the Maine Press Association in 2010.
Stone has more recently worked as a contractor with the Maine Department of Education, focused on improving the Department’s website and communications with the public.
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Eric Russell grew up in southern Maine and graduated from Westbrook High School in the late 1990s. He attended the University of Maine in Orono and graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor’s Degree in journalism.
In late 2003, Eric joined the Bangor Daily News, first as a news intern, then as a part-time reporter and finally as a full-time reporter. He spent two years in the BDN’s Hancock County bureau where, in 2007, he was honored by the Maine Press Association with the Bob Drake Young Writer’s Award. Eric moved back to the BDN’s main office in Bangor in 2008 and became a city reporter covering Bangor.
Earlier this year, he was named the BDN’s new State House reporter, responsible for coverage of the Maine House and Senate, the governor and a host of statewide issues that originate in Augusta.
What Maine means to me:
Many times when I was a bit younger, I dreamed of moving to a bigger market to pursue my journalistic aspirations. Then I got married and started a family and I realized, like so many do, that Maine is home. The stories and issues that matter to people are largely the same no matter where you live and I have come to take great pride in delivering those stories to people in the state I call home.
