It covers the cities of Ansonia, Derby and Shelton, along with the towns of Oxford and Seymour.

The site is named in honor of The Evening Sentinel,[1] a daily newspaper that was shut down in 1994.

The Valley Independent Sentinel has a full-time staff of three professional journalists, who worked previously at The Hartford Courant, The Connecticut Post, The News-Times of Danbury and The Republican-American of Waterbury.

[6] Subsequent years have been funded through money raised by the Online Journalism Project.

[8] During its first six months in operation, the Valley Independent Sentinel won five awards for its reporting from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists.