Maine news site blowing up the internet

By Ted Cohen

A year-old news upstart in southern Maine is all the rage now, breaking as many stories as the once-legendary daily Journal Tribune.

Joshua Wolfe, the founder and editor of The Biddeford Buzz, broke his latest blockbuster earlier this week, a piece about vandalism to the Biddeford office of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Wolfe actually started his news website after becoming a crime victim himself and being intrigued by the way news outlets practice their craft.

The Buzz now has nearly 15,000 readers, as many as the 135-year-old Journal once claimed before it went out of business in 2019.

The website is now by far the most-widely-followed news outlet in York County's largest city, eclipsing any competitor with more than double the number of followers.

The Journal Tribune once owned York County, claiming far more regional subscribers than the state's largest daily, the Portland Press Herald.

Since the Journal folded seven years ago, others have tried to pick up where it left off, none nearly as successful as Wolfe's bootstrap operation.

All they can do is read it and weep,as we say in the trade.

Wolfe, a one-man band with no prior news experience, started with nothing more than a vision, a phone and a laptop.

He is already Biddeford, Maine's news leader, claiming a readership matching the venerated Journal Tribune.

Ted Cohen is a former longtime reporter and coastal bureau chief for the Portland Press Herald.