Valley Independent Sentinel

Last updated
Valley Independent Sentinel
TypeDaily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s)Valley Community Foundation and the Online Journalism Project
Founder(s)Knight Foundation
EditorEugene Driscoll
Founded2009
LanguageEnglish
Headquarters158 Main St., Suite 305
Ansonia, Connecticut 06401
Flag of the United States.svg  United States
Website valley.newhavenindependent.org

The Valley Independent Sentinel is an online-only, non-profit news site covering the lower Naugatuck Valley of Connecticut, United States.

Contents

About

The site launched on June 22, 2009. It covers the cities of Ansonia, Derby and Shelton, along with the towns of Oxford and Seymour.

The site is named in honor of The Evening Sentinel, [1] a daily newspaper that was shut down in 1994. [2]

It covers community news and events, with an emphasis on breaking news.

The Valley Independent Sentinel has a full-time staff of three professional journalists, who worked previously at The Hartford Courant, The Connecticut Post, The News-Times of Danbury and The Republican-American of Waterbury. The site has an office on Main Street in Ansonia.

Funding

The Valley Independent Sentinel was created through a partnership between the Online Journalism Project, [3] the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, [4] and the Valley Community Foundation. [5]

Its first two years were funded through a $500,000 grant from the Knight Foundation. [6] Subsequent years have been funded through money raised by the Online Journalism Project.

The Online Journalism Project [7] also publishes The New Haven Independent. [8]

Awards

During its first six months in operation, the Valley Independent Sentinel won five awards for its reporting from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ansonia, Connecticut</span> City in Connecticut, United States

Ansonia is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. Located on the Naugatuck River, it is immediately north of Derby, and about 12 miles (19 km) northwest of New Haven. The city is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was 18,918 at the time of the 2020 census. The ZIP code for Ansonia is 06401. The city is served by the Metro-North Railroad. Ansonia Station is a stop on the railroad passenger commuter service's Waterbury Branch connecting to New York's Grand Central Terminal. Ansonia also is served by the Connecticut Transit bus carrier. Connecticut Route 8 serves Ansonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derby, Connecticut</span> City in Connecticut, United States

Derby is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, approximately 8 miles (13 km) west-northwest of New Haven. It is located in southwest Connecticut at the confluence of the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers. It shares borders with the cities of Ansonia to the north and Shelton to the southwest, and the towns of Orange to the south, Seymour to the northwest, and Woodbridge to the east. The city is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was 12,325 at the 2020 census. It is the smallest city in Connecticut by area, at 5.3 square miles (14 km2).

<i>Hartford Courant</i> Largest daily newspaper in Connecticut, US

The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury, its headquarters on Broad Street in Hartford, Connecticut is a short walk from the state capitol. It reports regional news with a chain of bureaus in smaller cities and a series of local editions. It also operates CTNow, a free local weekly newspaper and website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connecticut Route 34</span> State highway in Connecticut, US

Route 34 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Route 34 is 24.37 miles (39.22 km) long, and extends from Washington Avenue near I-84/US 6 in Newtown to the junction of I-95 and I-91 in New Haven. The highways connects the New Haven and Danbury areas via the Lower Naugatuck River Valley. The portion of the route between New Haven and Derby was an early toll road known as the Derby Turnpike.

The New Haven Register is a daily newspaper published in New Haven, Connecticut. It is owned by Hearst Communications. The Register's main office is located at 100 Gando Drive in New Haven. The Register was established about 1812 and is one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the U.S. In the early 20th century it was bought by John Day Jackson. The Jackson family owned the Register, published weekday evenings and Saturday and Sunday mornings, and The Journal-Courier, a morning weekday paper, until they were combined in 1987 into a seven-day morning Register.

CTNow is a free weekly newspaper in central and southwestern Connecticut, United States, published by the Hartford Courant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seymour High School (Connecticut)</span> Public school in Seymour, Connecticut, United States

Seymour High School is a secondary school at 2 Botsford Road in Seymour, Connecticut in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alberto Ibargüen</span> Puerto Rican/American entrepreneur

Alberto Ibargüen became President and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida in 2003. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald in Miami, Florida. Under his leadership, The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes; El Nuevo Herald won Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism. Ibargüen was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022. As of March 2023, Ibargüen announced his intention to retire as Knight Foundation CEO.

Rocky Hill High School is a four year high school in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy Land USA</span> American amusement park

Holy Land USA is an 18-acre (7.3 ha) theme park in Waterbury, Connecticut, inspired by selected passages from the Bible. It consists of a chapel, stations of the cross, and replicas of catacombs and Israelite villages constructed from cinder blocks, bathtubs, and other discarded materials. The park closed to the public in 1984 and fell into disrepair. On September 14, 2014, the site reopened to the public for the first time in 30 years with an inaugural Mass. The area is now open to the general public during daylight hours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2010 Connecticut gubernatorial election</span>

The 2010 Connecticut gubernatorial election took place on November 2, 2010, to elect the 88th Governor of Connecticut. Incumbent Republican Governor Jodi Rell had announced in a press conference in Hartford on November 9, 2009, that she would not seek re-election in 2010. The sites Cook Political Report and CQ Politics both rated the election as a toss-up. This was the first open seat gubernatorial election in the state since 1994. As of 2022, this is the last time the Governor’s office in Connecticut changed partisan control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hartford Colonials</span>

The Hartford Colonials, originally the New York Sentinels, were a professional American football team that played in the United Football League in its 2009 and 2010 seasons. A charter member of the UFL, the Sentinels began play in 2009 nominally representing New York City but playing its home games in three stadiums, none of which were in the city proper: Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut; Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, New York ; and the now-demolished Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. As the Colonials, the team played all of its home games at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, representing the adjacent city of Hartford. League-wide financial problems and the high rate of rent at Rentschler Field led to the league suspending the Colonials' operations in August 2011, a month before it would have begun play in its third season. The league had stated that the Colonials could be brought back for the 2012 UFL season, if it were to be played, but the announcement of the 2012 season removed Hartford's logo from the UFL Web site and did not include the team in the league's 2012 schedule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sports in New Haven, Connecticut</span>

New Haven, Connecticut has a rich history of sports and athletics at the amateur, collegiate, and professional levels. Below is a history of some of the teams the city has hosted, as well as significant sporting events that have taken place in New Haven.

Professional ice hockey in Connecticut has a rich tradition dating from the mid-1920s. Most of these teams were NHL minor league affiliates located in New Haven, though with the closure of the New Haven Coliseum, minor league affiliates now exist only exist in Hartford and Bridgeport. Hartford had its own Major league team, the Whalers team that existed in Hartford from 1974-97. Independent hockey leagues teams have also been gaining a foothold in Danbury starting in 2004.

The Connecticut Mirror is an online-only newspaper headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, founded in 2009 with $1.8 million in startup funding by the nonprofit Connecticut News Project and composed of former staff from the Hartford Courant. It focuses on public policy and political issues in the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Connecticut gubernatorial election</span>

The 2018 Connecticut gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 2018, to elect the next governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut, concurrently with the election of Connecticut's Class I U.S. Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections. This race's Democratic margin of victory was the closest to the national average of 3.1 points.

The New Haven Independent was a weekly newspaper published in New Haven, Connecticut from 1986 to 1990. Emphasizing local investigative reporting, neighborhood-based journalism and cultural affairs, the Independent attracted national attention for innovative civic journalism, presaging the growth of hyperlocal and nonprofit news in the years that followed. In 1988 Columbia Journalism Review credited the Independent with bucking national trends: “Conventional wisdom would hold that to launch a new weekly newspaper in a place like this, the editors would have to aim squarely at the suburbs and the gentrifying sections of town in order to survive. But the New Haven Independent…has included the city’s ethnic and less than upscale neighborhoods and survived. It has gathered up journalism awards in the bargain and held the feet of the city’s daily…to the fire.”

The Tucson Sentinel is a nonprofit online newspaper in Tucson, founded in 2009 and began publishing full-time in January 2010, with a focus on Arizona and regional news.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Hill</span> American journalist and academic

Evan Hill was an American journalist and professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn), where he chaired the journalism department from 1965 to 1984. A stern but beloved teacher, Hill exerted major influence on Connecticut journalism. He mentored many editors and reporters in the region and served as a director and trustee of The Day. He authored eight books and 160 magazine articles.

References

  1. Extra, Extra! Valley Caught Up In Web Of News Rick Green, The Hartford Courant. 2009-28-04. Retrieved 2010-26-06
  2. "Hartford, Connecticut Breaking News, Sports & Entertainment - Hartford Courant".
  3. Online Journalism Project
  4. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
  5. The Valley Community Foundation
  6. Valley Independent Sentinel Project Summary. John and James L. Knight Foundation. Press Release. Retrieved 2010-26-06.
  7. "It Won't Line a Bird Cage, but It's Still News (Published 2010)". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 2022-06-17.
  8. It won't line a bird cage, but it's still news. Peter Applebome, The New York Times. 2010-17-02. Retrieved 2010-26-06.
  9. "Valley Indy Wins SPJ Awards | Valley Independent Sentinel".
  10. Results of the 2009 Excellence In Journalism Contest. Connecticut Post. 2010-28-05. Retrieved 2010-26-06.