![]() ![]() O’Neil, who did not return calls for this story, joined MediaOne in 2005, the year before Cole ended his six-year stint with the Sentinel. It’s very simple.”Īnother person close to the situation, who asked not to be named out of concern for possible repercussions in his career, also said that O'Neil had troubled relations with his direct reports including the publishers at the Sentinel. “The common factor is the person we all reported to. “The common factor in all of that turnover is not the people that were turned over,” he said. Thurman said he found it particularly difficult working with his boss, Mark O’Neil, the president and publisher at MediaOne New England, and he believes the same is true of other Sentinel publishers. “You were walking in quicksand,” he said. He said he found management shifted priorities rapidly, telling him to concentrate on meeting people in the community and then criticizing him for not devoting enough attention to generating revenue. Thurman, who took the publisher position in March 2008, after Owen left, said it was hard to get a handle on the job. That’s better than the national average, which fell 22 percent from 2000 through 2009, the most recent year data was available from the Newspaper Association of America. Its weekday numbers fell nearly 13 percent from 16,723 in 2000 to 14,593 in 2010. Like most newspapers, the Sentinel has seen a decline in circulation over the past decade. But he said relations were also difficult with management at Media One New England, the division of MediaNews Group that oversees the Sentinel, the Lowell Sun and several weekly papers. Owen said it was a hard job for a number of reasons, including the industry-wide challenges in making a profit from journalism and the rough economy of North Central Massachusetts. “I would rather have been told the idea that it was going to be very challenging: ‘It’s going to be tough, we’ve got cuts we’re making,’” he said. Owen, who served as a division sales manager at The Boston Globe before joining the Sentinel in 2007, said that from the beginning he felt the job was not what he’d signed up for in the hiring process. The longest serving publisher of recent memory was Asa Cole, who held the position for six years. Owen’s predecessor was Richard Barker, who held the position from March 2006 to early 2007. Before that was Chuck Owen, who spent about five months at the Sentinel before he went on to work in advertising with Gatehouse Media, which owns a number of local papers, including the MetroWest Daily News. He’s now working in sales and marketing at Mill River Capital in Florida. Prior to Smith, Rick Thurman held the post for most of 2008. But she said the turnover makes it difficult to build on the connections that have been created. Linda Racine, executive vice president at Fitchburg-based Rollstone Bank & Trust, said she’s been happy over the past few years to see the Sentinel’s leadership respond to the concerns of local businesspeople and political leaders when it comes to editorial content. No matter what the cause, leaders in the North County region say the lack of consistent leadership makes it hard for the paper to be as relevant as possible to the communities it serves. That level of turnover certainly raises eyebrows, but it may reflect some difficult conditions that are common to many daily newspapers as they struggle to turn a profit while moving into the online arena. The publisher of a local newspaper typically fills a number of roles: leading editorial and sales staff, serving on community boards, acting as a punching bag for displeased readers and generally serving as the face of the paper.Īt the Sentinel and Enterprise, the local paper serving Fitchburg, Leominster and the surrounding towns, over the past five years, that face has changed six times. ![]()
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