Sentinel & Enterprise

[2][3][4] The main competitors to the Sentinel & Enterprise are the county's largest daily, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester; on the west, The Gardner News; and on the east, Nashoba Publishing weeklies and The Sun of Lowell, also owned by MediaNews.

Formed in 1973 by the merger of two newspapers covering adjacent cities, the daily traces its lineage back to the Fitchburg Sentinel (founded 1838) and Leominster Enterprise (1873).

[5] In the 1980s, the paper was known as the Fitchburg-Leominster Sentinel & Enterprise, and published only six days a week, Monday through Saturday, in the afternoon.

[5] Its longtime owner, Thomson Corporation, as part of a nationwide divestment of small-market newspapers, sold the Fitchburg paper to MediaNews.

[5] Following MediaNews' purchase of The Sun and Nashoba Publications weeklies covering several towns between Lowell and Leominster, the company consolidated printing in 2002 for all of these properties at a new $7 million press plant in Devens, Massachusetts.