Editor Kate Cough has announced the addition of Josh Keefe to The Maine Monitor newsroom, where he will serve as The Monitor’s new government accountability reporter. 

“I’m happy to return home to Maine, but even happier to join a newsroom that I have long respected and admired,” Keefe said. “I can’t wait to help continue The Monitor’s tradition of thoughtful and impactful nonprofit journalism.”

Keefe returns to Maine journalism after most recently serving as an investigative reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville, where his work on dysfunction in the child welfare system, including abuses at Tennessee’s last state-run youth prison, won “Best News Reporting” at the 2023 Tennessee Press Awards, and his feature on the state’s bungled lethal injections won “Best Investigative Reporting” at those same awards. 

Prior to that, he was an investigative reporter at the Bangor Daily News, where he co-reported investigations on hidden misconduct at Maine sheriff’s departments, sexual assault and harassment in the Maine Army National Guard, and the struggle to find safe housing in Maine’s poorest neighborhood. 

“We’re thrilled to welcome Josh back to Maine and to The Monitor newsroom,” said Cough, “and excited for him to fill this role as government accountability reporter at such a pivotal moment, when faith in our institutions is faltering and readers need, now more than ever, information they can trust.”

Originally from the Bangor area, Keefe is a graduate of Skidmore College and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He lives in Portland.