Kearney returns as editor

Tom Kearney has returned as managing editor of the Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record.

He succeeds Matt Kanner, who moved back to the Portsmouth, N.H., area for family and professional reasons.

Kearney was managing editor of the Stowe Reporter from April 2005 to November 2012, and of the Waterbury Record from 2010 to 2012.

He left to join a community-news startup at hibu, the company formerly known as Yellowbook. The project aimed to start 3,500 monthly, hyperlocal community news magazines in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Latin America. It launched 700 magazines in 15 months before the company ran into money trouble and scrapped the project. Kearney was senior manager for global editorial quality, overseeing copy editing managers in the U.S., U.K. and Spain, building a highly competent copy desk in India, and working on training for magazine editors and a quality-review process to ensure continuous improvement.

“It was sad to see the magazine project end, but I’m very lucky that Matt Kanner decided to move back to New Hampshire’s seacoast and that Biddle Duke (owner of the newspapers) would welcome me back,” Kearney said. “These are excellent newspapers, and this is an excellent job.”

Kearney spent 20 years as executive editor of The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, a daily newspaper; is in the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame; was a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism; and is a former board member of the New England Society of News Editors, the New England Newspaper and Press Association, and the New England First Amendment Coalition.

He and his wife — Maria Archangelo, former publisher of the Stowe and Waterbury newspapers — live in Montpelier. Archangelo is the communications and marketing director for Prosperoware, a company that produces software for law firms and other professional services.