Curtis Robinson was fearless as a reporter, never afraid to afflict the comfortable.
But perhaps Robinson‘s biggest accomplishment was being idealistic enough to go head to head with Maine’s largest newspaper.
Robinson with two colleagues started a gutsy tabloid in Portland years ago on nothing but a wing and a prayer.
The free Portland Daily Sun without apology ran streamlined quick hits and some local opinion stuff.
The paper wasn’t just another liberal rag but a crime sheet with a dash of lifestyle columns that made reading it downright refreshing.
The Sun really was a dream, not only for the few readers it was able to tear away from the other alleged newspaper in Maine’s largest city.
It was a gamble that Robinson et al took on with a youthful devil may care just because they could.
Up against the full-fledged sales team and highly-paid union staff at the Press Herald was editor Curtis Robinson and a tiny rag-tag outfit of young, hungry writers who if they got paid didn’t make a living wage.
The paper was founded in 2009 by Mark Guerringue and Adam Hirshan of Country News Club, in partnership with Robinson, who served as founding editor.
Its first edition was printed February 3, 2009.
Circulation, which started at 3,000 copies, quickly rose to 15,000, publishing five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday.
Three years into it Guerringue said The Sun wasn’t yet profitable, but “We’re poised for it, the pieces are in place.”
In 2013, the paper decreased its publication to only two days a week, citing a lack of advertising revenue.
The Sun published its final issue December 23, 2014.
The paper didn’t last long – it had five good scrappy years – but damn its tiny staff surely had fun just imagining ruining someone’s day at the long-established Portland Press Herald.
Bob Higgins, who wrote for The Sun, recently recalled that he used to refer to billionaire Donald Sussman – the one-time husband of socialist U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree – who once owned the Portland Press Herald, by turning the two double s’s in Sussman’s name into dollar signs, “Su$$man,” when he wrote about him in tmThe Sun.
They had fun at The Sun.
Robinson died recently at his South Portland home.
If only The Portland Sun were still around to headline his passing:
𝔓𝔬𝔯𝔱𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔓𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔰 ℌ𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔡 𝔊𝔫𝔞𝔱 𝔇𝔢𝔞𝔡
