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Publisher Richard J. Warren presides over the paper today, keeping it alive during challenging times for the news industry and extending his family’s legacy as the paper’s owner and caretaker. Warren’s great-grandfather, J. Norman Towle, bought the paper in 1895. Warren represents the fourth generation of the family to serve as publisher. He presides over the primary daily newspaper and history-keeper for Aroostook, Hancock, Knox, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo, and Washington Counties
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Metro talked to Rick Warren about the Bangor Daily News, past, present, and future.
How did the News come to be part of your family?
My great-grandfather bought it in 1895. The family had a grain and tackle business downtown, and I think when they saw trolley tracks being laid down the middle of Main Street they realized that there was a terminus to that line of work. [Thomas J. Stewart] had started the News for the purposes of running for office. He lost his congressional race and his subsequent interest in the paper. My great-grandfather, J. Norman Towle, bought it, merged the News with a weekly paper [the Whig and Courier], and beat out the other daily [Bangor Daily Commercial].
What makes a family-owned paper different from one that’s owned by a larger corporation?
I think the main thing is the history and the local knowledge, an appreciation for the area, just knowing the people. Corporations tend to move people around a lot, especially at upper levels of management, which is good and bad: It’s good for their own opportunity and career advancement, but I do think they don’t always get to know a community, and they come in and make assumptions that often wouldn’t stand up if they had a little more grounding in the history and the customs of the area.
With most dailies in the U.S. now owned by large news conglomerates like Gannett, it must give you satisfaction that the BDN has managed to stay local.
We’re proud of having multigenerational roots in Bangor, and having the paper survive as the daily here, and of our commitment to the community, not just Bangor-Brewer but all of northern Maine. My grandfather solidified our commitment to northern Maine, which has been a good thing, but it’s also brought rising expenses. Our delivery costs and news-collection costs are high compared to papers with more contained geography.
You once said that the region and the paper have been through a lot together. Talk about the paper’s role as the region’s “oldest living citizen.”
I guess I would think of it more in terms of the changing demographics and economics of the region. We’ve been here through the closure of Dow Air Force Base. The Caribou and Presque Isle areas experienced the same thing. The shoe industry’s gone. We’ve been here through the slow work of building back the economy after important institutions have left. Northern Maine has certainly had its ups and downs. Now we’re in the unenviable position at the moment of the change in the economic foundation, from the forest economy into whatever’s coming next, and we haven’t quite figured out exactly what that is yet.
Is part of the paper’s mission to help make that transition and stimulate economic development?
Yes. It’s an underlying part of what we try and do on a daily basis. We basically try to provide a newspaper with a mix of national and international news, but the primary focus is on local news for our readers and advertisers. We just try to create the best newspaper we can to serve both constituencies, the readers and the advertisers. In order to help any of this, you’ve got to be a successful business yourself. That’s been the major challenge—to run a profitable business and reach out and help the area in the process.
The recent layoffs of 11 News staffers, some of them well-known names in the community, really bring home the struggles of the newspaper industry.
The layoffs were painful. As you point out, they affected not just friends and colleagues inside the News, but were, in several cases, people well-known to our readers and to the larger community. These were people who contributed in their careers here, and their work was valued by the company. They will be missed. When faced with this situation, each department must make decisions about what work is being done, what needs to continue to be done, and what might not be able to be supported in the future. It is about what we can continue to do.
What are some of the challenges you’re facing, and how are you addressing them?
The News is reflective of the condition of traditional media across the country at present. Readership and viewership, in the case of television, are down. Changing the reading habits of the next generation of potential newspaper readers is a big challenge. They’re not as much every-day-of-the-week newspaper readers as their parents were. They have multiple sources of information these days and they’re very adept at using the Internet. But personally, I don’t think they’re going to the Internet to get news any more than they are not going to the newspaper to get news. One of the challenges that our society faces is that people aren’t getting as much news as previous generations, and therefore are not forming judgments about voting and societal issues on a solid foundation.
How do you address that as a business?
We’re constantly trying to find ways to make the paper more attractive to younger readers. We have a very strong NIE [Newspapers in Education] program, where we get papers into classrooms, for teachers to use. It’s quite popular, and I think if you catch the attention and imagination of young people in school, that will carry forward in the future.
How is the BDN embracing the Internet, and where do you see those efforts leading down the road?
We have a website, and I think, for a newspaper website, it’s pretty good. As with all newspapers, nobody’s totally figured it out yet. We’re struggling to integrate our advertising sales efforts and our Web. Web revenue is growing, but it’s not a major part of our revenue mix so far.
Out of the events you’ve covered since you’ve been publisher, what are some of the ones that stand out in your mind?
When the ice storm hit, we lost power here, and later lost it at our production plant in Hampden. That night, our people at the plant were sticking around, wanting to print a paper if at all possible. I said, “Well, use your judgment, but don’t be afraid to shut it down and try again tomorrow.” I really didn’t think we were going to put out a paper that night. I got up about five o’clock the next morning. Electrical transformers were just exploding all over town, and tree limbs were falling. I went to the front door, mainly just to look up and down West Broadway, and there was the paper. It was small, but we got about 25,000 out before the power went off again. We basically just gave them away that day.
What other events stand out?
I certainly think the folk festival has been a huge event for Bangor and for us. We’ve supported it from the day that the group here in town decided to try to bring it here. That first night, that first event was incredible. And this year, we had 120,000 people here.
How about politically? What’s the paper’s role there?
I think in my grandfather’s and father’s generation, there was a definite conservative Republican bent to the paper, and it was known as pretty conservative. I have more moderate views, and I think our editorial writers, Todd Benoit and Susan Young, do, as well. We’ve moved a little more toward the center, and the fact is, I think for the first time we endorsed a Democrat for president in the last presidential election. We endorsed Kerry. That’s pleased some people on the Democratic side of the ledger, but it’s also riled up some of the old conservative folks who think we should stick to our roots.
When a lot of people think about BDN people, they think of Bud Leavitt, Vic Runtz, or even Robert Newall. You’ve had some special people over the years.
We have. Certainly on the outdoors side of the editorial department, we’ve had some real characters. We’ve had Bud, Owen Osborne, Tom Hennessey, and now John Holyoke, who’s doing a great job. Kent Ward is certainly a name. He has a deep understanding of Maine politics and traditions and people. He’s still writing a weekly column.
Does the fact that you have so many people who’ve been here for 20 or 30 years speak to the family aspect of the Bangor Daily News?
It does. It also speaks of an attraction that these people have for living in a place like Bangor. We certainly have a lot of cultural opportunities, but you can escape to the woods and water, too.
Rumor has it that fishing is a real passion for you, and that you’ve fished all over the world.
Bud Leavitt and Tom Hennessey and another good friend of mine, Bill Bullock, introduced me to fly-fishing. I became a passionate Atlantic salmon fisherman, and fortunately, my wife enjoys it almost as much as I do. We’ve fished in Russia, Scotland, New Brunswick, Quebec. We’ve done some trout fishing in Argentina.
What about this region?
This place is fantastic. No question. One day, Tom Hennessey and I went out on the Penobscot, early one morning. I landed a salmon, and was back in here for an 8:30 meeting. There aren’t too many places in the world where you can do that.
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