About Us

Vision, Mission and Values

Vision:

To be the number one media source in our market.

Mission:

Working together to provide valued information products and services that exceed customer expectations!

Our Core Values:

High Performance:

We are responsive to market and technological changes. We expect and recognize high achievement.

Integrity:

We are honest and truthful in our words and actions.

Community:

We are advocates of the greatest good; we serve the public. We reflect the community, its people, its culture, its diversity and its values.

Customer:

Financial success depends on providing outstanding service to current and potential readers, advertisers and other consumers of our products and services.

Co-workers:

People are our greatest resource. Co-workers treat each other with respect and support each other’s efforts to succeed.

Awards

Journalism and public service:

Scripps Howard National Journalism Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment and The National Headliner Award for Public Service.
In competition open to all American media outlets, the News Sentinel was selected for these awards honoring service to the First Amendment.

Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors Awards
The News Sentinel was named the Best Large Newspaper Website in Tennessee for 2009 at the annual TAPME Awards. KNS also received first place awards for daily deadline reporting for coverage for the natural gas explosion that leveled a West Knox County house and for feature reporting for "A day in the life" by staff writer Kristi Nelson. The News Sentinel won first place at the 2008 TAPME Awards for daily deadline reporting for coverage of the McClung warehouse fires.

Tennessee Press Association
The News Sentinel received the Meeman Award for Public Service at the 2009 Tennessee Press Association State Press Contest for coverage of the charter amendments. The Sentinel also took first place for best single feature, best headline writing and best Sunday editions. At the 2008 contest, The Sentinel received first place awards for best news reporting, public service, best single feature, best headline writing and additional honors in nine other categories.

Society of Professional Journalists
The News Sentinel won 32 awards in the 2009 East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists Golden Press Card Awards, including 11 first place honors for breaking news, continuing coverage, project writing, columns, headlines, inside page design, photo illustrations, editorial cartoons, feature photography, online use of video and best website (knoxnews.com). In 2008, the Sentinel won the top two honors -- the Horace Wells, Jr. Community Service Award and the Golden Press Card Award -- for coverage of Knox County government. The News Sentinel won 21 Awards of Excellence at the 2007 Society of Professional Journalists Golden Press Card Awards. In addition, Sentinel reporter J.J. Stambaugh took home the highest honor of the evening, the Golden Press Card, for his series, "Homeless, not hopeless."

Tennessee Sportswriters Association
The News Sentinel received first place awards for the best daily sports section, best special section, column writing, news writing and headline writing in 2009. The Sentinel took home six additional honors in categories such as event writing and outdoor writing.

In Defense of a Free Press
In 1999, the Sentinel received a national honor from the AP Managing Editor’s Association "for devotion to overcoming obstacles in the path of a free flow of information and contributing through extraordinary effort to the public’s right to know."

Multimedia:

Radio Television Digital News Association
The video "Death on Chipman Street", a documentary that Jigsha Desai, Lauren Spuhler, Erin Chapin and Talid Magdy created about the Christian-Newsom murders received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in electronic journalism from the RTDNA at their 2010 awards event.

Online Journalism Awards
The Online News Association, a national online journalism group, awarded knoxnews.com with a 2009 Online Journalism Award in the Breaking News category for coverage of the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge Awards
Knoxnews.com won three Digital Edge Awards in 2008: Best Overall News Site, Best Design and Site Architecture and Most Innovative Visitor Participation (for schoolmatters.knoxnews.com). RandomThis, a weekly video column, received a Digital Edge Award for Best Use of Interactive Media in 2007. The newspaper competes in the 75,000 to 250,000 print circulation category. Awards are presented by the New Media Federation of the Newspaper Association of America, the primary trade group for the newspaper industry.

EPpy Awards
Govolsxtra.com won a 2008 EPpy award for Best Sports Site. GVX was also a finalist in the Best Overall Design and Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Web Site categories. The EPpy awards, presented by Editor and Publisher and Mediaweek, are one of the nation’s most-prized and long-running honors for online content.

Inland Press Association
The Inland Press Association awarded knoxnews.com the General Excellence Award for newspapers with print circulations over 20,000 at the 2009 and 2008 New Frontiers Awards.

Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Awards
The Green Eyeshade Awards is a regional journalism competition recognizing outstanding journalism in 11 southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. In 2007, the KNS Media Group won first place in the Niche Journalism category for GoVolsXtra.com and third place in the Best Use of Multimedia category for the Sweet 15 multimedia package on knoxnews.com.

Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors/Tennessee AP Broadcasters
The News Sentinel’s Lauren Spuhler and Morgan Simmons won first place for Songs of Appalachia in the multimedia category at the 2009 journalism competition sponsored by the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors and the Tennessee AP Broadcasters. Lauren also took first place and Erin Chapin won second place in the video category.

Design & photography:

Tennessee Press Association
The News Sentinel won seven awards for excellence in design and promotion in the 2009 Tennessee Press Associations Ideas Contest, including a sweep of the Best Overall Web Site Design category. Knoxville.com took first place in the Best Overall Web Site Design category, with govolsxtra.com receiving second and prepxtra.com garnering third. The Sentinel took home 10 awards at the 2008 contest and 17 awards in the 2007 Ideas Contest, including Best of Show and the highest honor, the Jack Freeland Memorial Award.

Niche publications:

Society of Professional Journalists
Metro Pulse won 18 awards in the 2009 East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists Golden Press Card Awards, including six first place honors for general reporting, sports reporting, editorial writing, reviews, informational graphics and best blog The Daily Pulse. They were also part of a four-way tie for the Horace Wells, Jr. Community Service Award for their coverage of the TVA ash spill. The Shopper News won seven awards, including two first place honors for columns and project writing. Blount Today won three awards, including a first place honor for deadline photography.

Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth
Blount Today received a state-wide 2010 Making Kids Count media award for excellence in children’s advocacy from the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth.

GAMMA Awards
skirt! magazine received a Gold GAMMA award for both General Excellence, the highest award in their division, and Best Single Issue at the Magazine Association of the Southeast’s 2008 GAMMA Awards. skirt! also took home the Bronze GAMMA for Best Single Cover and Silver GAMMAs for Best Design and Best Essay. The only program that honors editorial and design excellence in magazine publishing in the Southeast, the GAMMA Awards are judged by an elite group of magazine editors and designers from all over the country.

Newspapers in Education:

Newspaper Association of America Foundation
The News Sentinel’s Newspapers in Education received two first place awards at the Newspaper Association of America Foundation’s 2008 Excellence Awards. The Sentinel’s Nature Explorers curriculum received First Place for Original Curriculum and the Who Are You in the World of Work? program received First Place for Special Projects. This competition included entries from the U.S., Australia and Canada.

Tennessee Press Association
The News Sentinel won the 2007 Best of Show award and the highest honor, the Jack Freeland Memorial Award, for the Nature Explorers Newspapers in Education Science Curriculum.

Tennessee Education Association
The News Sentinel’s Who Are You in the World of Work? program won the 2008 School Bell award.

Community:

Impact Award
The News Sentinel was awarded the 2007 Impact Award at the Knoxville Chamber Partnership’s third annual Pinnacle Business Awards. The Impact Award is given to a company for displaying a commitment to making East Tennessee a better place to live through the development and support of the community.

Goodwill Corporate Sponsor of the Year
Goodwill Industries, Inc. named the New Sentinel Corporate Sponsor of the Year for 2006.

History

In 1886 publisher John Trevis Hearn founded The Sentinel as an evening newspaper. Hearn is prominent in Knoxville history for changing the way paperboys were paid. Instead of a weekly salary, Hearn sold the papers to boys who resold them to the public for their own profit.

A competing newspaper, the Knoxville News, was established in 1921 by Robert P. Scripps and Roy W. Howard. The News did not align itself with any political party, and soon gained a reputation as an active voice against corruption and fiscal irresponsibility. The News criticized the state's law against teaching evolution and helped establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was instrumental in modernizing the state constitution, abolishing the justice of the peace system, obtaining statewide compulsory voting registration, and fighting segregation in schools and public facilities.

The News absorbed The Sentinel in 1926 and became The Knoxville News-Sentinel, which continued as an afternoon paper until 1986. In that year it switched to a morning publication. The News Sentinel has established a record for being a leading influence behind the passage of strong shield and open meetings laws in Tennessee.

In 1994 the News Sentinel was among the first newspapers to establish a Web site. The newspaper now manages a multitude of award-winning internet sites offering multimedia content.

The News Sentinel’s press and facility, completed in 2002, are among the most modern newspaper facilities in the world. With the move to the new press in 2002, the newspaper redesigned the look of the paper and dropped the hyphen in its name to become the Knoxville News Sentinel – today, the cornerstone of the KNS Media Group.

From the award-winning News Sentinel that’s served the region for more than 100 years, to a growing number of websites, magazines, community newspapers and special events, the KNS Media Group is unmatched in delivering valuable information and services throughout East Tennessee.

Directions

The News Sentinel’s main facility is located at 2332 News Sentinel Drive, Knoxville, TN, 37921. Our main phone number is 865-523-3131.

From I-40 Westbound
From I-40 Eastbound
From Hwy 129 (Alcoa Hwy)
From 1-75 Southbound
From Oak Ridge
From Clinton
From UT/Kingston Pike Eastbound
From UT/Kingston Pike Westbound

I-40 Westbound: Exit 387 – Western Ave./ 17th Street.
Left on 17th Street.
Left on Western Ave.
Continue on Western Ave., crossing Middlebrook Pike/University Ave.
Turn Left on News Sentinel Drive. It is the fifth street on the left (just past Knoxville College St.).

Exit 386A – Middlebrook Pike/University Ave.
Right on Middlebrook Pike.
Right on Proctor St. (third street on the right, just under the I-40 viaduct).
Right on News Sentinel Drive (first street on the right).

Alcoa - Highway 129:

Get in the right lane and veer right as if getting onto I-40 East.
Exit – Western Ave./17th Street. The exit is just prior to hitting I-40 East.
Left at stop sign at bottom of exit ramp onto 21st St.
Left at traffic light onto University Ave./Middlebrook Pike.
Continue on Middlebrook under the I-40 & Hwy 129 viaducts.
Right on Proctor Street, after passing under second viaduct.
Right on News Sentinel Drive (first street on the right).

I-75 Southbound:

West on I-640.
Exit 1 - Western Ave.
Left onto Western Ave.
Go through 6 traffic lights (2 miles) to News Sentinel Drive. You will pass Ridgebrook Apartments.
Right on News Sentinel Drive (across from Malcom Martin Park).

Or

I-75 to I-275 South.
Take I-40 West exit.
Exit 387 – Western Ave./17th Street.
Left on Western Ave.
Continue on Western Ave, crossing Middlebrook Pike/University Ave.
Left on News Sentinel Drive. It is the fifth street on the left (just past Knoxville College St.).

From Oak Ridge:

South on Oak Ridge Hwy (Hwy 62).
Continue south over I-640. Oak Ridge Hwy becomes Western Ave. (Hwy 62).
Go 2 miles, through 6 traffic lights to News Sentinel Drive. It is just past Ridgebrook Apartments.
Right on to News Sentinel Drive (across from Malcom Martin Park).

From Clinton:

South on Clinton Highway.
Right on Pleasant Ridge (behind Walmart).
Follow Pleasant Ridge to Western Ave.
Left on Western Ave.
Go 1.8 miles to News Sentinel Drive. It is just past Ridgebrook Apartments.
Right on to News Sentinel Drive (across from Malcom Martin Park).

OR

South on Clinton Highway to I-640 West.
Go west on I-640.
Exit 1 – Western Ave.
Left on Western Ave.
Go 2 miles through 6 traffic lights to News Sentinel Drive. It is just past Ridgebrook Apartments.
Right on to News Sentinel Drive (across from Malcom Martin Park).

From UT - Kingston Pike Eastbound

Left on 17th Street.
Left on Western Ave. at the sixth traffic light (including the flashing light).
Through next traffic light (University Ave. / Middlebrook Pike intersection).
Left on News Sentinel Drive. It is the fifth street on the left (just past Knoxville College St.).

From UT - Kingston Pike Westbound

Right on 17th St.
Left on Western Ave. at the sixth traffic light (including the flashing light).
Through next traffic light (University Ave. / Middlebrook Pike intersection).
Left on News Sentinel Drive. It is the fifth street on the left (just past Knoxville College St.).

The E.W. Scripps Company

The E.W. Scripps Company is a diverse media concern, which owns the KNS Media Group as well as newspapers in 13 other markets, 10 broadcast TV stations, the Scripps Howard News Service and United Media, which is the worldwide licensing and syndication home of Peanuts, Dilbert and 150 other features and characters.

The Scripps motto is, "Give light and the people will find their own way." This motto is signified in the lighthouse emblem, which is an integral part of the Scripps and News Sentinel logos.

For information on investing in Scripps, click here.