Committment to local news remains the same

IT will not have escaped many people’s attention that the media industry is in the midst of a radical overhaul.

The current economic climate is of course playing a part in this, as it is in every other aspect of our daily lives. Still, there is a need to keep abreast of how this affects us not just internationally but at base level in our own towns and cities.

The Londonderry Sentinel has been informing the people of this city of the issues that affect them for 183 years.

When it was established in 1829 the paper was printed daily and because of the city’s major commercial and naval port the paper was able to convey news from across the globe. It has survived two global conflicts and the Northern Ireland conflict and continues to keep people informed of the issues affecting their lives.

The tradition of this paper reveals that it always embraced the most up to date technology in printing and was amongst the first to regularly harness the use of photography in newspapers.

To this end, the fast changing pace of news delivery has seen the Sentinel and its sister titles spot the changing trends and recognise the need to once again adapt to the changing circumstances within the industry. This is just part of the reason why the Sentinel remains one of oldest continuously published English language newspapers in Europe.

However, in the modern world we also recognise that just publishing a weekly newspaper is not truly fulfilling the needs of our readers.

In a city of 100,00 people, the news changes by the hour and to reflect that the paper has committed to harnessing itself to the increasing demand for online news.

www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk has been up and running for several years, but recently a revamped format has allowed the paper to branch out further into the digital provision of news as it happens.

The Sentinel website has been redesigned to primarily allow you, the reader, to play an interactive role with your local news outlet.

In order to allow this the Sentinel has launched a presence on the social media outlets, twitter and facebook and because of this you will know in advance not only what is coming in each edition of the Sentinel but what is happening around you each day-in a similar way therefore, you can let bus know what is going on almost instantly as well as letting us know your thoughts on events as they happen. These formats will also importantly let you tell us what you think the issues are that we should be focusing on.

The facebook presence for both the Londonderry Sentinel and Roe Valley Sentinel has already seen a massive spike in followers with over 2,000 people signed up to the Londonderry site and over 1,000 people to the Roe Valley site.

Having signed up to twitter just a few weeks ago, already over 200 people and organisations are following Sentinel output on a daily basis and the expectation is that these figures will climb and climb.

This commitment to new media does not mean in anyway that the weekly edition of the Sentinel will take a back seat. In fact, what it means is that the editorial staff of the paper are better placed to get a handle on what is going on, what issues are affecting people most and allow readers to give their voice to those issues.

Another new facet of the Sentinel website is the fact that we are also now able to bring you video interviews online of the news, features and sports stories in your city whilst bearing in mind the political and cultural aspirations the Sentinel has represented for almost 200 years.

The new technology employed by the Sentinel will allow journalists to continue to preserve the best traditions of the outlet in terms of breaking exclusives and holding to account political and statutory organisations charged with running your city. There will of course also always be room for coverage of community events and the achievements of local people.

In this way it is plain that the commitment to local news remains just as strong as it did back in 1829. In fact we have again become a daily news presence in the city once more and you can find us not just in your newsagents each Wednesday but on your PC, your tablet device and even your mobile phone.

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