Karen Harrigan bought the paper in 2003 from her father, John Harrigan, whose parents Fred and Esther Harrigan ran the Sentinel for over thirty years. Linkedin photo
Colebrook, NH: The 154-year-old newspaper, The News and Sentinel, “with roots that go back to 1870,” closed its doors on August 28, 2024. Yes, papers die, which you could interpret as going out of business. But those of us who have worked in the newspaper industry for decades know that a newspaper is a living, breathing entity thriving, growing, and living off the energy of the people who work there.
Some would consider the newsroom the heart of the paper with an editor, directing the beating of the muscle by identifying problems that need investigation and sending the often-considered, hard-nosed investigator out to get the facts.
I come from the advertising department and our motto was always, nothing happens until a sale is made, meaning, without the cash to support the effort then nothing gets done. After retiring from the paper, I joined the nonprofit world of nonpartisan news at www.InDepthNH.org. Believe me when I say we depend on and are grateful for your donations to help us continue to live, publish, and grow.
The memorial to the folks who lost their lives that day.
John Harrigan ran the Sentinel and survived a 52-year career in the industry and just missed the possibility of death by getting to the paper after a gunman killed, “editor, Dennis Joos, and District Court judge Vickie Bunnel, as well as two state troopers, Scott Phillips and Leslie Lord.”
The News and Sentinel was under its third generation of local family stewardship. Karen Harrigan bought the paper in 2003 from her father, John Harrigan, whose parents Fred and Esther Harrigan ran the Sentinel before that. Our hearts are with Karen Harrigan this sad week for her and all of New Hampshire.
“Karen and her team firmly believe that the newspaper belongs to the community, and strive to provide the professional journalism and effective advertising that readers and customers have come to expect…,” according to the Sentinel’s website.
The newspaper’s website Wednesday noted, “The past several years of declining advertising revenues and readership numbers have taken their toll, and today’s issue is the last for The News and Sentinel.
“This was by no means an easy decision,” said editor and publisher Karen Harrigan in the final story. “We have a great team of people working here, many readers and contributors who care deeply about the paper, and some longtime, faithful advertisers who have trusted us to promote their businesses, all of whom I kept in mind while weighing the options for the paper’s future,” she said.
She also noted that two years ago an effort to sell the business, and thereby ensure its future as a community newspaper, was unsuccessful. “We came close, but it didn’t happen, and at that point I knew the writing was on the wall,” Karen Harrigan said in the paper. “We never regained our pre-Covid advertising level, and over the past few years our region has undergone a sea change that has worked against us.”
Above, John Harrigan is pictured heading for his camp. He wrote the following in the first column he wrote for InDepthNH.org: “This is where a lot of the time a lot of my heart is — camp, in the middle of nowhere, an uphill hike from the nearest log-landing. That’s me, back-packing in the first piece of furniture in 2004—a reading chair, of course.” His columns are archived here: https://indepthnh.org/series/view-from-above-the-notches/
When I interviewed John for my book, “Stories from the Rolodex,” we met at his home in Colebrook that lies up a long, winding road heading to the sky, he refused to say the name of the killer and I will not put it here either.
To remember John, the Sentinel, and the brave souls who died that day, I wanted to show some pictures of my visit and remind folks of the importance of journalists, ad salespeople, paper deliverers, printers, and anyone who loves a newspaper in the morning. We lost a good one and I hope the building is memorialized in some way. The picture below is from John’s front porch. He died on December 26, 2022.
The last edition contained the very local news that folks here rely on. There’s a photo of the girls’ hockey team in action, a notice of a meeting about a proposal to extend the ATV riding season on Connecticut Lakes Headwaters trails in Pittsburg and a reminder that Errol is celebrating its 250th Anniversary.
Thank you Karen Harrigan for your fine stewardship. We will miss your newspaper.
Beverly Stoddart is an award-winning writer, author, and speaker. She is on the Board of Trustees of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and serves on the board of the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism. She is the author of Stories from the Rolodex, mini-memoirs of journalists from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
