Food and dining reporter Meredith Goad has announced plans to retire from the Portland Press Herald bringing to close a 33-year career with the newspaper.
Goad made the decision to leave the paper and return to her home state of Tennessee to spend time with family and especially to help take care of her elderly mother. While she’ll be missing friends and life in Maine, she’s looking forward to a life without deadlines and the chance to read a book or two.
Her last articles will appear in the paper in December including a farewell piece from her to the Maine community. An online Newsroom Live event is also being planned so Meredith can say goodbye and answer questions.
Goad has played a central role in reporting on the Portland and Maine food scene. She began covering the restaurant ‘beat’ at an auspicious time—just when Sam Hayward won his James Beard Award in 2004—and has been a witness and reporter on the city’s growing reputation ever since. She’s broken stories, added perspective and contributed greatly to keeping us all informed about the wonderful food and dining scene we all get to enjoy. One of my favorite Meredith articles was one she co-authored with Mary Pols that delved into the origins of farm to table movement in Maine. Written seven years ago, it still is a great introduction to anyone asking why Portland has become a dining destination.
The Press Herald has opened a search to find a new food and dining reporter for the paper. The paper “seeks an outstanding journalist to cover the world-class food and restaurant scene” in Maine. Here’s a little more of the official job posting on journalismjobs.com,
This is not a job for a rookie. Successful candidates will have several years of daily news experience and be able to submit clips that demonstrate experience not just in writing about food but in reporting business stories and working with public records requests. We care as much about health inspections as we do recipes, as much about how pandemic relief money is spent as we do about what ingredients our chefs are using. We need a reporter who is aggressive but not arrogant, who is confident but works collaboratively with editors and colleagues. And this is not a desk job – you’ll spend time on local farms and in our famed Old Port, getting to know restaurateurs, making connections with servers and diners.