I have written a river of words in my life as a newspaper editor, but the next few will be the hardest.
Tuesday, after more than 100 years, the Costello family will no longer own a daily newspaper in Maine.
I have been retired for a year as editor of the Sun Journal, but I spent 19 years working every day with members of the Costello family.
Before that, I spent 21 years as an editor for other newspaper owners in different parts of this country.
So, please accept that I have some unusual insight into how newspapers are operated and how they serve — or fail to serve — their communities.
Readers all have their opinions about whether their local newspaper is doing a good job. But they can’t really judge how similarly-sized newspapers elsewhere perform.
I can tell you that the Sun Journal and its readers have benefited enormously due to the ownership of the Costello family.
For years, I received detailed reports from an outside organization that compared many metrics at similar newspapers elsewhere.
The Sun Journal always had more newsroom people than similarly sized newspapers in other markets.
Many other newspapers had more revenue, but very few had as large a newsroom staff. This was a conscious decision by the Costello family to cover a large chunk of Western Maine and to provide the very best newspaper to its readers.
The Sun Journal newsroom also had proportionately more experienced people than any newsroom I was familiar with.
At other newspapers, I regularly hired young reporters right out of college and they would often move on after a couple of years. This is a typical pattern at many small dailies.
The Sun Journal newsroom has always had its share of young people, but it has always had way more 15, 20, 30 and even 40-year employees.
This meant that reporters, photographers and editors have been around long enough to know their communities and can report with greater authority while making fewer mistakes.
This only occurred because the Costello family created a workplace where good people felt rewarded and appreciated — and stayed.
I saw over the years how this came straight from the top when Jim Costello Sr. was publisher of the Sun Journal.
Jim Sr., as everyone called him, was a quiet man who led by example. He treated people fairly and found places for long-time employees even when technology made their former jobs obsolete.
Jim Sr., who died two years ago, was kind and fair, even when it would have been to his financial advantage not to be.
It was always clear that Jim Sr. and his gracious wife Janice had embedded the same values in all of their children who gradually took over ownership and management of the newspapers: Jim Jr., Cathy, Steve, David and Maureen.
Through good times and bad, I found them all relentlessly positive, encouraging and dedicated to covering local news even as other organizations abandoned rural communities.
The past few years have been tough for all newspapers, including the Sun Journal, and we had to make difficult decisions about staffing and content.
Extraordinary efforts were always made to minimize the impact on news coverage for readers.
Today, the newsroom staff is smaller than when I came to Lewiston 20 years ago. But it has not suffered the sweeping personnel cuts that have befallen many chain-owned newspapers in the U.S.
The newspapers under the Costellos have always been conservatively managed and they never took on the extravagant debt loads that crippled so many other newspapers when the recession hit 10 years ago.
The Costellos were also ideal owners for me as editor. They were always consistent. Nobody got preferential coverage and everyone’s name appeared in the police log if they were arrested. Everyone.
They stood behind the newsroom when it came to outside pressure and they urged us to fight hard to represent Lewiston-Auburn and Western Maine.
They were willing to spend money on open-record lawsuits and occasionally lost money when a local advertiser was angry about something we wrote, but we had their support as long as it was fair.
The Costellos were always working owners. They worked longer hours than most employees and were never above jumping in and solving any problem, whether it was mopping up a flooded floor or staying long into the night to make sure the paper got out the next day. In a crisis, they were always right there with us.
I was gone long before the sale discussions started, but I can see from the outside that the Costello family has chosen to sell to a new owner who has stated — and demonstrated — in Portland that newspapers can’t cut their way to success.
I won’t pretend to speak for all employees, but there will be a big hole in many hearts when the members of the Costello family no longer walk the floors of those old buildings.
They will always be loved and respected by those of us who had the pleasure of knowing them best.
Rex Rhoades is a former editor of the Sun Journal. He lives in Auburn.
Maine Press Association Hall of Fame
The Costello family, from left, sons Steve, Jim Jr., David, wife Janice, Jim Costello Sr., daughters Maureen Costello Wedge and Cathy Costello Snook. The photograph was taken on the occasion of Jim Sr.’s induction into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame in 2009.
Through good times and bad, I found them all relentlessly positive, encouraging and dedicated to covering local news even as other organizations abandoned rural communities.
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