Earlier Rome papers in the 1820s sharing the same publisher included the
Rome Telegraph and
Democratic Sentinel. The two began publishing as the
Rome Sentinel (including
Rome Weekly Sentinel and
Rome Daily Sentinel) in the 1840s. Since 1864, the
Sentinel has been
family-owned. Since as early as 1855,
Sentinel articles, editorials, and photos have been reprinted or used as sources by other papers such as
The New York Times, as well as the
Associated Press. The
Sentinel covered the activities at nearby
Griffiss Air Force Base, including the presence of nuclear weapons there, until the closure of Griffiss in 1994. The Sentinel company founded a radio station, WRUN, which signed on April 24, 1948. WRUN stood for "Rome-Utica News". At the time it applied for permits, the signal from Utica-based competitor
WIBX was too weak to reach Rome at night; WIBX upgraded their transmitter soon after.
Dick Clark was an announcer at WRUN before becoming a television news anchor at
WKTV in 1951. The Sentinel company sold WRUN in 1970. Later, a local FM repeater of
WAMC would use the call letters
WRUN, and the AM station would rebrand as
WUTI, which would become defunct in 2013. The Sentinel company published the "Clinton Record" from 2018 to 20202, covering the
village of Clinton. In early 2022, the paper rebranded as the
Daily Sentinel. Other changes at the same time included switching from carrier delivery to delivery via the U.S. Postal Service, expansion of local news coverage to all of
Oneida,
Herkimer and
Madison counties, and a $1 increase in rates. At that time, publisher Bradley Waters mentioned that the paper had not turned a profit for four years, and expressed hopes that the changes would allow the
Sentinel to remain family-owned. Over the following year, the boards of the
Utica City School District and the
town of New Hartford voted to switch from the Utica-based
Observer-Dispatch to the
Sentinel as their
official newspaper. In its organizing meeting for its 2024 term, the
Utica Common Council voted to switch the city's official newspaper to the
Sentinel. ==References==