The Bangor Daily News is announcing the following personnel movesin the editorial department, effective today:
Michael J. Dowd has been named managing editor, replacing JulieMurchison Harris, who has been named editor-at-large. Rick Levasseurhas been named night news editor. Tim Allen has been named assignmenteditor responsible for political coverage, business, health care, theenvironment, and education. Judy Long has been promoted to assistantcopy desk chief.
Dowd, 47, is in his 26th year with the BDN, having worked for 14years as an award-winning sports writer and columnist before servingas an assignment editor for the bureaus, city editor, and night newseditor.
'It's a privilege to have the opportunity to help lead thisdedicated and talented group of professionals in these challengingtimes for print journalism,' said Dowd, who cited former BDN managingeditors Harris and Nancy Remsen and Associate Managing Editor KentWard as role models. 'My goal is to help make the Bangor Daily Newsthe most accurate, relevant and responsive newspaper in Maine.'
Dowd is a member of the New England Society of Newspaper Editorsand the Maine Committee on Media and the Courts.
A native of Bangor, Dowd graduated from Stearns High School inMillinocket and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.,with a bachelor's degree in English. He has attended the AmericanPress Institute in Reston, Va., and is a graduate of the BangorRegional Leadership Institute. He lives in Hermon with his wife, Ann.
Levasseur, 49, began his career at the BDN in 1979 as a part-timedistrict correspondent. He has since worked as a reporter, copyeditor, feature writer, assistant editor and assignment editoroverseeing the political and special assignment desk. He has wonseveral Maine Press Association writing awards.
A native of Fort Kent, Levasseur attended Colby College inWaterville, the Universite de Caen in France, and the University ofMaine at Fort Kent. He has served on the board of the Maine PressAssociation, including as president in 1999-2000. He lives in Bangorwith his wife, Theresa, and their two children.
Allen, 55, has held a variety of reporting and editing positionsat Maine newspapers since the late 1970s, including the AmericanJournal, a weekly newspaper in Westbrook, and the former EveningExpress in Portland.
He held various posts at the Lewiston newspapers in the 1980s. Hecovered the court, political and State House beats as a reporter andserved stints as editorial page editor, assignment editor of theSunday paper, and managing editor of the daily paper.
For most of the 1990s, Allen worked at the Morning Sentinel inWaterville, first as a copy editor and later as editorial page editorand news editor. He joined the BDN in 1998, where he has been anassistant copy desk chief.
He is a former member of the board of directors of the Maine PressAssociation.
A native of South Portland, Allen holds a bachelor's degree inEnglish from the University of Maine and a master's degree in Germanfrom Middlebury College in Vermont.
He and his wife, Linda McRea, a copy editor at the BDN, live inBangor.
Long, 30, is a graduate of Brewer High School and attended ColbyCollege in Waterville as a Presidential Merit Scholar. She graduatedfrom Colby with a bachelor's degree in English and minor ineconomics.
Before joining the BDN as an intern in 1998, she worked forChampion International Paper Co.'s human resources department and asa swing manager at McDonald's. Long also has served as a librarian'sassistant and a volunteer at the Orrington Public Library.
At the Bangor Daily News, Long worked as an intern on the newsdesk before moving to the copy desk in 1999. She became a full-timecopy editor in January 2000. She has performed editing and paginationduties in all editorial sections of the paper and assisted the BDNsystems editors in various duties.
She and her husband, Jay, live in Orrington.
