Politics. Housing. Business. Law. Education. Health. Crime. Energy. Climate change. For more than 12 years, I’ve broken news in all of these and more. My award-winning enterprise work has helped drive community reforms that protect tenants’ rights, launched state inquiries into sexual harassment and negligence by educators, and exposed inequity and ethics breaches in small towns, state governments and the White House.

Now: Senior Political Reporter, Bangor Daily News. Covering a pivotal U.S. Senate race, wide-open gubernatorial race, and state and federal policy impacts across Maine.

Previously: Washington, D.C. correspondent as part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s news & investigations team, before taking the lead covering the Pennsylvania governor’s race and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s rising national profile. I led the Post-Gazette’s weekly political newsletter during the 2024 election season & late 2025-early 2026. Before that I held reporting and editing roles at The Boston Business Journal, MassLive, The Day and The Palladium-Times.

Education: B.A. Journalism, Northeastern University. Energy Journalism Fellowship, Columbia University.

Notes: I’ve led or collaborated on investigative projects, newsletters, audience-driven series, social media, video and audio. My shoe leather reporting has often been bolstered by public records and data, and I enjoy working with visual and graphics teams to help strengthen storytelling. I’ve been a photographer for several years, and all the outlets I’ve worked with have occasionally featured my photos.

My journalism career follows a decade of award-winning team leadership and coaching in sales and management, where I led staffs from five to 30 people in a deadline-intensive environment. Since then I’ve been a tireless fighter for local news, freedom of the press, freedom of information and open meeting laws, reporter safety, newsroom and source diversity, and shield laws protecting reporters’ privilege.

Contact, tips, questions: bkail@bangordailynews.com, bkailreporter@gmail.com, BenjaminKail.13 on Signal, LinkedIn and resume.