State Editor

Date Posted	September 10, 2025
Industry	Newspapers, Digital Media
Specialty	Not Specified
Required Education	Bachelor's Degree
Job Status	Full-time
Salary	Not Specified

Description:

The Bangor Daily News is seeking a skilled editor to lead coverage of coastal and northern Maine.

The ideal candidate is an experienced editor with a track record of directing ambitious journalism that drives impact, grows audiences and wins awards. But we’d also consider accomplished reporters looking for the next step in their careers. 

In this role you’d work with a deputy editor to help reporters identify trends and shape coverage strategies. You should be an excellent line editor, but that’s only part of the job. Editors here work closely with reporters during the story generation and reporting process to establish ledes and nut grafs, identify sources and understand what job the story is doing for the reader. 

You would also coach reporters to help them advance in their careers here, which means identifying training opportunities and giving regular feedback on progress toward company and professional goals. 

This position oversees journalists covering coastal Maine, roughly from Rockland to Mount Desert Island, and Aroostook County. These are both important, growing regions for us, and we’re looking for someone who can hit the ground running and help reporters to get big scoops and write with authority.  

The position is based anywhere on the coast, but the editor would need to regularly travel to meet with reporters and to our home office in Bangor. 

If you’re the right person for this challenge, this is how we would describe you: You can write a killer web headline. You’re energized by a fast-paced environment. You live to break stories. You omit needless words. You’re an expert communicator who treats colleagues with respect and maturity. You know how to create a collaborative environment for reporters and other editors. You love working with others to serve a local audience. You have excellent critical thinking skills and a deep respect for the mission of journalism. You are obsessed with finding ways to better serve your audience and can't wait to try new things. You’re really good at teaching staff new skills. 

You’d be joining a large, and growing, statewide news organization in its fourth generation of local ownership. We believe that there’s a bright future for local newsrooms that invest in good journalism and put their audiences first. This role is a key and influential part of that plan. 

I.  Job Responsibilities

• Lead and manage your team and contribute to a healthy newsroom culture.

• Assign and direct individual stories and reporting projects that offer BDN readers up-to-the-minute news and the emerging, important trends that affect their lives.

• Understand your topics or regions thoroughly so stories are knowledgeable and advance our audience’s understanding. 

• Use strong editing skills to help reporters develop the point of a story and demonstrate clearly to the audience why it matters.

• Use analytics tools to understand our audience and its needs. Interpret data and report and act on the results.

• Achieve audience goals using multiple paths. 

• Stay informed on the latest direction of the news industry. Regularly work with other editors to advance the newsroom and company goals.

II. Job specifications

• Several years experience in journalism

• Strong leadership skills

• Ability to work on multiple projects with different focuses in quick succession 

• Attention to detail

• Ability and willingness to learn

If you think you might be our next great hire, please submit your resume and cover letter to jdyer@bangordailynews.com.