The Sentinel

It’s published by Staffordshire Sentinel News and Media, formerly a branch of the Daily Mail and General Trust‘s Northcliffe Media division but now part of the Local World media group since Northcliffe was incorporated into it on its creation in November 2012.

Its origins lie in a weekly newspaper founded in 1854, The Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser. A daily companion followed in 1873, the Staffordshire Daily Sentinel, and the two were amalgamated in 1882 as the Staffordshire Sentinel, Daily and Weekly. The Evening Sentinel took on the role of daily publication in 1929, and became simply The Sentinel in 1995.

Besides the Main edition, there are local editions for Cheshire and the Moorlands, plus a Weekend edition on Saturdays. There’s also a companion weekly freesheet, the Sentinel Advertiser (which replaced the earlier, much more widely distributed North Staffs Advertiser in May 2011).

From 2000 to 2007 there was a Sunday edition called Sentinel Sunday. Originally a broadsheet, it switched to tabloid format in 2006 but was discontinued in September 2007 after failing to meet circulation and advertising targets. (An earlier attempt at a Sunday edition, the Sunday Sentinel, was even more short-lived, running only from December 1928 to August 1929.)

A popular feature since 1986 has been the cartoon strip “May un Mar Lady” by Dave Follows. Follows died in 2006 aged 62, but the strip is being re-run in its entirety.

Originally its website was at thisisthesentinel.co.uk. In 2011 that URL was redirected to Northcliffe’s generic portal website for Staffordshire, thisisstaffordshire.co.uk. However, it now has its own website once more as a consequence of Local World’s policy decision to give all its titles “publisher-branded” websites.