Outlet profile

Bangor Daily News

U.S. center-left (editorial page); news coverage mainstream regional

Owned byBangor Publishing Company, a privately held, family-owned company controlled by the Towle-Warren family for four generations. Richard J. Warren is the current publisher.

FundingAdvertising, print and digital subscriptions, and reader memberships. It is a for-profit private company, not a nonprofit, and it has no outside corporate parent. It also receives some grant and philanthropic support for specific reporting projects.

On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The paper traces its roots to the 1889 founding of Bangor Publishing Company. The Towle family bought it in 1895, and the family's descendants, now the Towle-Warren family, still own it in their fourth generation. That makes it one of the few remaining independent, family-owned daily newspapers in New England. In 2022 the company voluntarily recognized a union representing more than 30 newsroom workers. Unlike several other Maine newspapers, which were sold to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News in 2023, the BDN has stayed in private hands. Its editorial board has endorsed mostly Democratic candidates in recent cycles, while sometimes backing Republicans and independents in Maine races. It also runs a wide range of opinion columnists, including conservative ones. In 2026, its editorials criticized the administration's ICE actions in Maine, arguing that the arrests did not match the pledge to target the 'worst of the worst'. Its news coverage of the Trump administration, including the 2026 governor's race, focuses on local effects on Maine residents.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-10-18; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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