Brian Boyd is named editor of the Vineyard Gazette to succeed Julia Wells

The Vineyard Gazette, the leading newspaper on Martha’s Vineyard, will welcome a new editor in July when Brian P. Boyd succeeds Julia Wells, who is retiring after 18 years as newsroom leader.

Boyd, 53, joins the Gazette from Shore Publishing on the Connecticut coast, where he is the editor in charge of seven weekly newspapers, associated websites and more than a dozen specialty publications. A graduate of Yale University, he joined Shore in 2000 as a reporter and photographer and quickly took on management responsibilities, adding two titles and overseeing the launch of the company’s first website.

Wells, 70, is stepping down after four decades of covering the news, interviewing newsmakers and charting the social, environmental and cultural changes that have shaped the Island. By the time she joined the Gazette in 1984, she had already cut her teeth as the Vineyard reporter for the New Bedford Standard Times and the Cape Cod Times. She rose to senior reporter of the Gazette before being named editor in 2004.

She was named to the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2020.

“No one can match Julie’s knowledge of and devotion to the Vineyard, but in Brian we’ve found someone who is equally passionate about community journalism,” said Jane Seagrave, publisher of the Vineyard Gazette Media Group. “His experience covering 13 very different New England towns has remarkable parallels, and he brings a native curiosity, a love of nature and a commitment to the highest standards of news reporting.”

At Shore Publishing, Boyd directs a staff of 23 reporters and contributors, and has been involved in developing new media applications, hosting events and moderating discussions and setting editorial standards.

At the Gazette, he will join an experienced editing team, including Bill Eville, managing editor, Stephen Durkee, director of graphics and design, and Elizabeth Bennett, community editor.

In continuous publication since its founding in 1846, the independently owned Vineyard Gazette is published weekly from its headquarters in Edgartown. Boyd will become the 10th editor of the broadsheet in its 176 years.

He begins work July 11.