The Keene Sentinel will no longer use independent contractors to deliver the paper, starting this summer.

Effective July 1, The Sentinel will use the U.S. Postal Service for print distribution, according to a staff memo issued May 28. The locally owned paper will also shift its publication schedule on July 1, which will allow the print edition to be available on newsstands throughout the Monadnock Region as early as 6 a.m.

“We want to improve the consistency and quality of the delivery of our paper,” said Sentinel President and Chief Operating Officer Sean Burke. “... We’ve been driven by a print deadline for years, and that’s not how our readers live their lives. It’s when they want [the information].”

The move mirrors one that roughly 1,200 daily newspapers across the nation had chosen to embark on as of a February report by Poynter, a nonprofit journalism school and research organization. Vermont News & Media, which owns the Brattleboro Reformer, Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal, made the shift in 2021. The Sentinel will continue to publish six days a week, Monday through Saturday. If a federal holiday falls on a publishing day, that day’s edition will be delivered the next day.

The shift to mail delivery means 11 independent carriers will lose their jobs. Some of them have been with the company for many years. But rising fuel costs, pay and other expenses have left newspapers nationally struggling to employ carriers. A difficult labor market has left rural independent newspapers with as many as 50 percent of their routes open, according to a December 2022 report by the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

“We regret the impacts on the independent carriers,” Burke said. “But for the greater good we have to make this move.”

The Sentinel’s transition to mail delivery is in part a response to ongoing issues with consistent delivery and labor shortages, according to Burke. He noted the decision was a necessary one to make for the sustainability of the news organization.

“It’s a move in the right direction for us,” he said.

The Sentinel’s carrier delivery model dates back more than 30 years, hiring youth carriers for the greater Keene area and motorists for the surrounding towns, according to Owner and Publisher Tom Ewing.

“From extracurriculars like sports to other jobs, these kids just didn’t want to do it anymore,” he said. “So we gravitated towards adult carriers, and we have found the same problems there.”

Readers who have questions can contact The Sentinel’s customer service department at 603-283-0797 or email circulation@keenesentinel.com. Print subscribers have full access to the paper’s two e-editions, a mobile app and articles published on keenesentinel.com.

Subscribers who have a newspaper tube and need assistance with its removal can contact the customer service department, which will arrange a time to remove it for no charge, according to Burke.

Sentinel staff will transition their internal work processes throughout this month to prepare for the changes. Today the newsroom has five reporters, one visual journalist and several editors covering the city of Keene and about 30 towns in the Monadnock Region.

“The Keene Sentinel has been delivering important news and information to our community for 225 years. Over that time our business model has evolved to meet the changing needs of our customers,” Burke said in the staff memo.

“The steps we’re announcing today carry on that tradition of adaptation and innovation as we continue to evolve and improve the way we deliver our mission of journalism as a community service.”