The Bangor Daily News has hired two reporters to expand its coverage in Hancock and Aroostook counties.
Julia Bayly, a longtime contributor to the BDN, has been hired to cover northern Aroostook County. Bayly, of Fort Kent, has written a weekly column for the BDN since 2010 and previously wrote freelance news articles for the BDN. She has also worked as a reporter and editor for the St. John Valley Times. A graduate of the University of Maine at Fort Kent, Bayly has lived in Aroostook County for 32 years. She joined Aroostook County reporter Jen Lynds on Monday.
Mario Moretto, a Hancock County native, has been hired in the BDN’s Ellsworth bureau, where he will cover Hancock County in coordination with reporter Bill Trotter. Moretto most recently worked at the Forecaster Newspapers where he covered Scarborough and South Portland, and has also worked as a copy editor at the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and at the BDN, and as news editor for The Maine Campus at the University of Maine. He started in his new position in June.
The Bangor Daily News is a family-owned, independent daily newspaper covering Maine since 1889. Its website, bangordailynews.com, is Maine’s leading source of news and information.
Good for you Mario. Cheers
I’m glad to see that BDN has added Julia to its staff. Her reporting is excellent, and I’ve always enjoyed her previous articles…best wishes, Julia! Decisions such as these, IMHO, keep the BDN on top of the heap statewise.
As a fellow beard owner I approve this message
Julia Bayly is top-notch. A wonderful addition to the BDN team.
How about hiring copy editors to ensure stories and headlines are factual and complete?
Mr. Robbins,
I hesitate to wade into the fray here, as I’m sure I can say little to pacify you. But as most people know, it is easier to Monday morning quarterback than it is to actually be in the game. And while we appreciate and pay attention to any and all constructive criticism, constructive your comment was not.
The BDN invests its resources in making sure that we have good reporters on the ground all over the state. That’s important, because without reporters there is no BDN. That being said, we also have, I believe the most thorough copy editing procedures and corrections policy you’ll find in this region. The BDN maintains a staff in addition to its assignment editors that copy edits every story before it appears online, and when we are alerted to factual errors we not only correct the story but append a correction that states clearly what the error was and what the truth is. Yes, there are still errors, both grammatical and factual. But they are few and far between considering the number of stories we publish, and probably you notice more here than in other places because we strive to be as transparent as possible.
I warrant you have few viable ideas about how to allocate staff resources differently while maintaining both the number of reporters we have now and the viability of the company. If you do I think we’d all be happy to hear them.
Best,
Will
you do need to do a better job with the fourms on-line.. no news media is 100% perfect and i for one don’t expect you to be.. just that more respect and less on-line trolling be addressed
Thanks Michael, we’ll certainly try. You can help by using the flag button under each story to bring particularly abhorrent comments to our attention.
Will
I would invite all following this thread to read http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/how_do_journos_find_time_to_fi.php?page=all.
It comes down to this: The copy desk is the last line of defense when it comes to errors making it into print.
I base my comment on the following errors that myself and other readers pointed out but were NEVER corrected:
— A story on a woman who drove her car into the Penjajawoc Stream from the Bangor Mall Hannaford parking lot. The reporter said the car went into Meadow Brook, which is miles away. Myself and other readers pointed out the error. It was never corrected.
— The paper’s constant references to Bangor City Council Chair Cary Weston as “mayor,” even though there is no such position to be found in the city charter.
— A story on the “topping off” ceremony for the Bangor arena under construction claimed that the beam was the “highest point” of the structure. Anyone looking at the photo that accompanied the story could see the beam wasn’t even close to being the highest point. But despite myself and others pointing the error out, no correction was ever made.
— A headline and story claimed that University of Maine President Paul Ferguson “officially” became president of the school when he was inaugurated. That was not true and was pointed out. No correction was ever made.
— A story on small claims court said that a defendant who does not appear can be arrested. Despite the error being pointed out, no correction was ever made.
These are simple, easily verifiable facts that have been pointed out, but no corrections were ever made.
You can have a hundred reporters covering the state. But that doesn’t mean anything if the copy desk can’t catch the simplest of errors and editors refuse to issue corrections. Quality, not quantity, is what counts when it comes to coverage. And, as Joseph Pulitzer used to tell his staff, “Accuracy, accuracy, accuracy!”
If you have a correction to report, please use the report a correction form at http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/corrections/report/. That is the most sure-fire way to ensure a correction makes it to the editors. This is the last I’ll say on the subject here, but please feel free to give me a phone call at 207.990.8250 if you have any other questions.
Mario is everything this state needs in journalism. Good on ya.
Congratulations to you both! Julia has already proven herself an invaluable member of the BDN team and Mario is out there already solidly reporting! Best wishes!
Maple syrup, no, I pour Mario on my pancakes. Grow up people.
I sincerely hope that these folks have some investigative journalism idea’s. There are so many stories that have not been told because they have been covered up. It’s time that they and others be told.
With the hiring of Bayly, does this mean that BDN really likes, and now endorses reporting in the St. John Valley to be broken down like this – 80 percent stories about Fort Kent and the rest whimsical musings from her own back porch (in Fort Kent)? Newsflash… Fort Kent is NOT the St. John Valley. BDN does not help by fostering that misperception to its readers outside this region. Make up your own minds of what kind of work ethic that is. There is a lot to report from other towns especially east and south, which comprise MOST of the Valley. The farther away from Fort Kent it is, the less reporting it gets… Er, uh… why is that? That’s one of the reasons that this paper isn’t worth buying around here. Thank God the reporter from Central Aroostook has been picking up the slack with the rest of Northern Aroostook, but it still doesn’t address the core issue.