The “local” part of “Maine Trust for Local News” has just gotten a lot less so with word that Skowhegan will now be covered from … Portland.
Jake Freudberg, the local Skowhegan writer, has alerted devoted readers he is being replaced by a guy reporting from 100 miles away.
Freudberg’s successor is Alex Lear, a Portland Press Herald reporter who works out of – drum roll – Cumberland County.
For years, Freudberg has been covering Skowhegan and the surrounding area for the Morning Sentinel, among the dailies the trust bought in 2023 from Reade Brower.
The trust says its sole purpose is “preserving local news,” according to the very same newspaper that just decided to cover Skowhegan from Portland.
In fact, when Tom Wiley was hired two months ago as the new CEO of the trust’s parent company, the Colorado-based National Trust for Local News he said:
“Local News isn’t complicated.”
Unless of course you cover it from 100 miles away.
Since the trust bought the state’s largest daily newspaper, the suits have decidedly been centralizing their coverage in Maine’s largest city, even going so far as to canceling the print editions of several of the weeklies covering smaller communities.
So, the trust that touts its focus on “local” news has replaced its only Somerset County reporter (who lives in Skowhegan) with the Cumberland County beat reporter (who lives in Portland).
“Make that make sense,” commented one loyal follower of Freudberg’s work.
“Skowhegan Now” is the weekly newsletter that Freudberg, who will now be fulfilling a different role, has been anchoring since 2023.
“Dear Skowhegan Now readers,” Freudberg wrote in his last dispatch. “You will no longer be hearing from me at the top of this newsletter. My colleague Alex Lear will be taking over ‘Skowhegan Now,’ as our newsroom is making changes to reporters’ beats.”
While Wiley is saying the trust knows that “local journalism isn’t complicated,” Executive Editor Carolyn Fox is simultaneously trying her best to prove him wrong.
Fox on Wednesday announced she’s hiring three non-reporters to help carry out the company’s “innovation in local journalism.”
The new hires “reflect a big step forward in the company’s mission to change the scope of what local news looks like,” her newspaper reported.
From all appearances, the Maine Trust for Local News was already doing a splendid job of “changing the scope of what local news looks like,” i.e., the latest example – deciding to cover Skowhegan, Maine from Portland, Maine 100 miles away.
If it weren’t so sad it would be laughable.
