NORTHAMPTON — The Daily Hampshire Gazette has promoted longtime editor Chad Cain to be its new managing editor for local news.
Cain, 52, recently completed his 15th year at the Gazette, joining the newspaper in 2007 as a reporter. Over the course of nine years, he covered business, higher education, general assignment and the city of Northampton before moving into various editing roles, most recently as opinion page editor.
Cain began his career in Grand Coulee, Washington, at a weekly in the middle of Washington state, not far from where he grew up in Spokane, Washington. He covered local government, schools, public safety, high school sports, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (which ran Grand Coulee Dam, the area’s largest employer), as well as the Colville Indian Reservation.
From there, he spent two years at the Spokane Journal of Business covering real estate and construction, before a move to the East Coast to follow his wife as she pursued veterinary school. Cain earlier spent seven years at the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham.
“We are lucky to have such an experienced and versatile journalist who knows the area well and who is a great mentor to our news reporters,” said Executive Editor Dan Crowley. “He’s been a leader in the newsroom for many years and the local news report will be in good hands with Chad, who has covered it all.”
Cain graduated from the University of Montana in Missoula with a degree in journalism and minor in history. He has been serving as editor of the opinion page, feature and business sections and said he is looking forward to the shift back to news full-time. He lives in Holyoke with his wife, Meg, and three children about to turn 16, 14 and 12.
“There have been a lot of changes at the Gazette in my 15 years here, but the core goals of covering the people and places of Hampshire County in a fair and thoughtful way — a precedent set by the many editors and reporters who have come before me — have remained the same,” Cain said. “I hope to continue that tradition in this role, and am looking forward to working with the experienced reporters in our newsroom as well as new ones who will come on board.”
In other staffing news, the Gazette recently hired Assistant Editor Scout Opatut, who will primarily oversee the features coverage at both the Gazette and its sister paper, the Greenfield Recorder.
A New Jersey native, Opatut, 32, studied journalism and philosophy at Emerson College and Fordham University and brings a strong background in the arts and music, writing, editing and social media skills. She moved from Harlem to Northampton in December 2020 when she was hired to assist with a biography of musician Sonny Rollins. She lives in Northampton with her husband, Evan.
“I’m thrilled to be the new assistant editor at the Daily Hampshire Gazette and taking on the features section of the paper, especially at a time when arts and culture are booming in Hampshire County,” Opatut said. “As I’m still relatively new to the area, I appreciate all the leads!”
“We’re excited to have Scout join the team at the Gazette,” Crowley said. “She has a creative background and will play an important role in reinvigorating our features coverage with new energy and ideas.”
Rejoining the Gazette’s photography team is Dan Little of Greenfield, who earlier worked as a staff photographer at the newspaper.
Little, 32, has a degree in photojournalism from the Rochester Institute of Technology and has been working as a photographer in many capacities for the past 10 years. He worked for the Albany Times Union in New York and the Lincoln Journal Star in Nebraska before making his way to the Pioneer Valley, where he spent the last five years working at The Recorder and Gazette. Little will be working night and weekend shifts covering sports, news and features.
“The Gazette has had a long history of being committed to photography,” Gazette Photo Editor Carol Lollis said. “I am so excited to have Dan on board as another very talented photographer to add visuals to our words.”