By RANDY SEAVER, Editor & Founder
The Biddeford Gazette began as a simple idea, a concept of what I thought Biddeford needed for regular, local news coverage in November 2024.
Prior to launching the Gazette, I had returned to my long career in journalism by working two years as a freelance reporter for Saco Bay News. Once again, I found myself covering my hometown and becoming a regular fixture at Biddeford City Hall. I even got to resurrect my former opinion column, All Along the Watchtower.
I have tremendous respect and admiration for Liz Gotthelf, a former Journal Tribune reporter and publisher of Saco Bay News, but we had different ideas regarding news coverage.
It really started with Jim Bennett
In July 2024, I finally decided that former Biddeford City Manager James Bennett had to go. The brash city manager was out of control. The city’s finance department was in chaos. City employees and others told me horror stories about his management style.
I told Liz that I could no longer cover Biddeford City Hall. I had found a new mission. I created a special section on my personal blog, Lessons in Mediocrity. I called the new section: The Bennett Files.
It took fewer than nine weeks to get the results I wanted. On October 15, 2024, Bennett reluctantly announced his resignation with more than a year remaining on his employment contract with the city.
With Bennett gone, going back to Saco Bay News didn’t seem like a good fit, especially since some University of New England officials were pressuring Liz to pull me off reporting about their controversial pier project.
A concept becomes reality
I started the Biddeford Gazette as just another section on my blog. I decided to go back to what I love: creating hard-hitting local news focused on Biddeford.
The name of the publication came from my fanatical love affair with the movie Jaws, which featured the fictional Amity Gazette as its local paper.
A few weeks went by, and I produced several stories and columns. I even began publishing local obituaries and community events on my personal blog.
On January 13, 2025, my wife Laura told me I needed to separate the Gazette from my personal blog. She saw some potential.
But we kept it low-key. We spent a few dollars and registered a new domain and bought some business cards.
The first story published on the Biddeford Gazette’s new website was posted on Jan. 14, 2025. It was a story about an upcoming school bond question
“We’ll see how it goes,” Laura said. “If you’re not having fun after six months, you can just stop.”
I had no idea what was about to happen.
Starting with a bang
I created social media pages and put my nose to the proverbial grindstone, but I could have never predicted the community’s reaction.
People embraced the Gazette and almost immediately began referring to it as “Biddeford’s paper of record.”
Several people – including some former journalists – stepped up to help. We had volunteers and unsolicited offers of financial support.
Just a few weeks after the Gazette’s launch, the weekly Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier ceased its printed publication, ending a 36-year run of providing local news coverage. The daily Journal Tribune had closed a few years before, and Biddeford –despite being York County’s largest community — was being virtually ignored by the Portland Press Herald.
It was the right time and the right place for the birth of a scrappy, hyper-local news outlet.
Our first year
We led the way in providing in-depth coverage of the city’s biennial elections. We even organized the only debate between the three mayoral candidates.
We dug deep and hard with enterprise reporting including our three-part series regarding the city’s housing crisis. We broke big stories but also never overlooked the little stories that make up the community’s heart and soul.
We also used our resources to share news stories and features about Biddeford from other media outlets, something that is virtually unheard of in the hyper-competitive news industry.
We forged a collaborative relationship with The Maine Monitor and saw our reporting shared on local television news stations.
We recruited and established a diverse, nine-member Advisory Board of community leaders to help guide our ongoing news coverage.
And then – almost exactly one year after our official launch — I learned that the Biddeford Gazette had become officially registered and incorporated as a non-profit media company in the state of Maine.
What a year it’s been. I cannot imagine what’s next.
Note: To see our list of 2025’s Top 10 Biddeford news stories, please click this link: Top 10 Biddeford News Stories | 2025
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