Irwin Gratz
Morning Edition ProducerIrwin was born and reared in New York City and, while he never hiked miles to school, he did walk up six flights of stairs every day to the apartment his family lived in until he was nearly 19. Irwin remains a lover of subway rides, egg creams, and the New York Mets.
He moved to Maine in 1978 and worked a dozen years in commercial radio in Sanford, then Portland, before beginning to freelance for Maine Public Radio in 1990. He has been the local anchor of Morning Edition since September 1992.
Irwin served as chairman of the Maine Association of Broadcasters in 2015. From September 2004 to October 2005, Irwin served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s largest and most broad-based journalism organization. He holds a master’s in journalism from New York University. Irwin won a Yankee Quill Award in 2011 from the New England Newspaper and Press Association for his “broad influence for good, both inside and outside the newsroom.”
Irwin also has an interest in astronomy, which he indulges to this day as an occasional show presenter at the Southworth Planetarium in Portland. And he swims, a lot. Irwin has completed seven Peaks Island-to-Portland swims. Irwin is married and has a teenage son.
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Maine is just now beginning to see impacts from the infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year. The measure promises to significantly boost federal spending on roads, bridges, rail, water projects, and broadband internet, among other things. -
The Maine CDC today announced 791 more cases of coronavirus infection, slightly fewer than yesterday. The numbers don't include at-home test results, so the number of Mainers becoming infected might be higher.
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That service resumes on Thursday, when the CAT runs between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth. Mood spoke with Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz about the visitors her city has missed.
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The Maine CDC is reporting 615 more cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. That's on top of 676 that were reported Monday, which reflected data from the weekend.
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Portland Jetport will close to all overnight air traffic to allow for work on a runway repaving project
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Three more patients are receiving critical care, for a total of 38 statewide. Four people remain on ventilators.
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Twenty businesses launch an effort to help others develop clean energy plans.
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The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments in which CMP seeks to throw out the result of last year's referendum, and the Board of Environmental Protection will take up CMP's appeal of a ruling.
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Bill Nemitz, a longtime columnist for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, announced his retirement this week. Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz spoke with Nemitz about his career in Maine journalism.
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Democratic State Sen. Chloe Maxmin has won two legislative races in rural, overwhelmingly Republican districts. In a New York Times essay published this week, and a book coming out next week, Maxmin says Democrats are losing those districts because the party has willfully abandoned them.
