Maine editors unexpected leapfrogged promotions

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

An embattled Maine newspaper company has bypassed two deputy editors of one paper to promote an editor from a different paper to supervise them.

The company also bypassed a ranking editor at a pair of papers to promote her underling.

Ben Bragdon, deputy editor at two central-Maine papers, was named the top editor at the Lewiston Sun Journal.

Two deputy editors at the Sun Journal - Mark Mogensen and Marla Hoffman - were overlooked in the process and will remain in their current jobs. They will now report to Bragdon.

Bragdon wasn't the only beneficiary of an unexpected leapfrogging.

To wit, Jessica Lowell, city editor of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, was promoted to managing editor at those two papers.

Lowell's promotion leapfrogged deputy managing editor Stacy Blanchet at the two central-Maine papers.

The surprising changes come after the recent resignation of longtime Sun Journal executive editor Judy Meyer, who also served as the executive editor of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel.

Meyer’s was the latest in a series of high-level departures, following the resignations of Maine Trust for Local News CEO Lisa DeSisto, Sun Journal Publisher Jody Jalbert and the National Trust for Local News’ founder and CEO Elizabeth Shapiro.

The national trust, of which the Maine trust is a subsidiary, bought a group of Maine newspapers in 2023 including the state's largest paper the Portland Press Herald, as well as the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal in Morning Sentinel.

Since then the newspaper conglomerate has announced 49 layoffs amid apparent budget problems that surfaced in the wake of the 2023 purchase.