Our mission

The reader of The Keene Sentinel will feel a sense of belonging and will be inspired and empowered to engage in community. This is made possible by an innovative, caring, proactive and responsive news organization that serves as a trusted source and civic partner.

We are a media enterprise located in southwestern New Hampshire whose principal goal is to help the 100,000 or so people living in this region understand what is going on around them.

The Sentinel was founded by 21-year-old John Prentiss in March 1799, and, as we understand it, is one of the five oldest news organizations in the country continuously published under the same name.

About 60 people work here, in all sorts of jobs: news, advertising, printing, circulation, online operations, business and so on. We pretty much create a new product from scratch six days a week and online all seven. And we publish several other products in print and online, too, including a business magazine, a parenting publication, even a magazine geared to equestrians.

The paper is locally owned, which is a rarity these days. The publisher and owner, Tom Ewing, lives in Keene and occupies a corner office overlooking West Street. He, like all the other members of The Sentinel team, is answerable to and for an enterprise that has been serving the community for more than two centuries. (We only missed the administration of George Washington.) Acknowledging the public nature of our work, we are also answerable to you.