Daily Herald’s opinion editor to leave newspaper

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 13, 2026

EVERETT — Jon Bauer, The Daily Herald’s opinion editor and an employee at the newspaper for nearly 25 years, will leave the company on Friday.

Bauer, The Herald’s opinion editor since 2014, will join the Bellingham-based startup newspaper Cascadia Daily News to serve as deputy editor.

In his decade-plus working as the writer of hundreds of editorials for The Herald, Bauer became known for his in-depth, informed opinion writing.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the job,” Bauer said in an interview Tuesday. “I like to write, I like to talk to people, I like to hear their issues. I like to hear, especially, their solutions for things that we’re confronting.”

Bauer grew up in Everett’s View Ridge Madison neighborhood, a 10-minute bike ride from Howarth Park Beach and within walking distance of the nearby View Ridge Elementary School. His brother delivered The Everett Herald on a paper route — Bauer would help sometimes.

“It was pretty ‘Leave it to Beaver,’” he said of his childhood. “Maybe ‘Happy Days.’”

After graduating from Everett High School, Bauer studied journalism at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He worked at weekly newspapers in Port Townsend and Anacortes for years before moving to the Tri-City Herald in eastern Washington.

In 2001, about a year and a half after he moved east, a position opened up at The Everett Herald for a copy editing job. It was a chance for Bauer to come back home. At that time, the newspaper had a much larger page count and a copy desk of eight employees, he said.

Over time, Bauer moved into multiple roles at the company — assistant news editor, features editor and news editor — before becoming the head of the opinion desk. This August would have marked Bauer’s 25th year at the company.

“That means you know you’re old when you’ve been around for a fifth of your company’s 125 years,” he said.

One of Bauer’s favorite parts of the job is dealing with the letters to the editor that come to The Daily Herald almost nonstop. For him, he feels that the letters show “a real ownership of the paper by our readers,” Bauer said.

“This is their paper,” he said. “They’re going to use that forum to let folks know what they think.”

As opinion editor, Bauer also wrote most of the newspaper’s editorials. He served on The Daily Herald’s editorial board along with its publisher, now Carrie Radcliff.

The Herald’s news editor, Aaron Kennedy, is set to take on the work of the opinion editor role after Bauer’s departure.

Radcliff said Bauer’s work earned him respect from people in the community.

“That’s what I loved about Jon’s work over the years, and especially in this last year that I’ve worked with him,” Radcliff said Wednesday. “… He took the frame of a reported opinion, citing sources, and backing up the opinion without it being a forceful opinion.”

If you can think of a topic involving Everett, Snohomish County or Washington State, Bauer’s probably written about it. He said his most passionate topic was the environment and climate change, as he “worries about what my generation has left behind” for his three grandchildren. Through his work, he said he hoped to shed light on solutions and ways that people can reduce emissions and prepare for the effects of the climate crisis.

He said he’s excited for his new position at Cascadia Daily News, where he will have a role in the news and opinion sections of the paper, working with promising young journalists while still bringing letters to the editor into the paper.

Bauer isn’t a stranger to trying new things or making a change. He’s known to sing the national anthem at AquaSox games with former Everett High School classmates, and at one point, he tried out for “Jeopardy.” (He didn’t make the cut).

Even still, he said he’ll miss the place he’s called home for so long.

But don’t worry. He’ll keep visiting, he said, for AquaSox games and more.

“I really do enjoy writing and enjoy the people that I work with, and I love this community,” Bauer said. “I grew up here … There’s a lot I’m going to miss here.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.