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Outlet profile

Bangor Daily News

U.S. center-left

Owned byIndependently owned by the Towle-Warren family (Bangor Publishing Company); Richard J. Warren is the fourth-generation publisher, great-grandson of J. Norman Towle who acquired the paper in 1895
FundingPrint and digital advertising, print and digital subscriptions (digital paywall launched 2017), reader and foundation donations, and state government contracts (the paper's publishing company received over $2.4 million from Maine's Mills administration for public affairs work between 2019 and 2025)
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The Bangor Daily News was founded on June 18, 1889, by Bangor shipping and logging businessman Thomas J. Stewart; in its earliest form it was a tabloid mixing news with gossip and sensational stories. After Stewart's death in 1890 his sons ran it briefly, and in 1895 J. Norman Towle purchased the paper and began stabilizing it as a serious daily. It merged with the Bangor Whig and Courier in 1900, extending its reach. The Towle-Warren family has owned the paper for four generations, and since 2018 it has been the only independently owned daily newspaper in Maine, distinguishing it from most of the state's other papers, which are chain-owned. Historically the BDN leaned conservative and backed Republican candidates, but that orientation changed noticeably in the 2010s; it endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024. Media Bias/Fact Check rates it Left-Center with a high score for factual reporting, and AllSides tentatively rates it Lean Left. In January 2025, the BDN scaled back its editorial board columns, saying interest in that format had waned nationally, and in late 2025 it published a formal statement of core journalistic values emphasizing independence and accountability. The paper's receipt of more than $2.4 million in state contracts from the Democratic Mills administration drew criticism from conservative outlets who questioned its editorial independence.

Sources

  1. Bangor Daily News – Wikipedia
  2. Bangor Daily News – Media Bias/Fact Check
  3. Bangor Daily News – AllSides Media Bias Rating
  4. Editorial: A new era for BDN opinion (Jan. 2025)
  5. Readers and funders raise more than $200,000 to support BDN journalism
  6. Bangor Newspaper Company Has Received More Than $2.4M from Mills Admin – The Maine Wire
  7. 130-year history of the Bangor Daily News – The County
  8. About – Bangor Daily News

Profile compiled 2026-07-19; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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