On its own, it is a small detail.
The Big Bend Sentinel’s Facebook page now lists editor Rob D’Amico’s personal cellphone as a public contact number.
The newspaper’s website continues to list its longtime office telephone number and Marfa office address, and the office line remains active.
But the cellphone listing comes at a time when the nearly century-old newspaper is operating very differently than it was only a few years ago.
Founded in 1926, the Sentinel has served as the newspaper of record for Presidio County for generations. For much of its history, the newspaper operated with the staff and infrastructure associated with a traditional community newspaper, including dedicated office space, print operations and multiple newsroom employees.
As recently as the month before the Sentinel transitioned to nonprofit ownership, the newsroom included editor Rob D’Amico and two full-time reporters.
Today, the newspaper has suspended its print edition indefinitely and continues publishing in a dramatically different media environment than the one that sustained local newspapers for most of the last century.
The significance of the cellphone listing is not the cellphone itself.
Many journalists use personal cellphones for work, particularly in smaller news organizations.
Rather, the listing serves as another visible reminder of the broader transformation taking place at one of Texas’ oldest newspapers.
Across the country, local newspapers have reduced staff, consolidated operations, eliminated print editions and adopted leaner business models in response to decades of declining print advertising revenue and changing reader habits.
The Sentinel’s recent struggles have made those industry trends particularly visible in Far West Texas.
For longtime readers, a personal cellphone number appearing as a public contact point may seem like a minor administrative change.
For those familiar with the newspaper’s history, it is another indication of how much the institution has evolved since the days when a dedicated newsroom staff produced a weekly print newspaper serving communities across the Big Bend region.
The phone number is not the story.
The story is that a newspaper approaching its 100th anniversary is confronting the same economic realities reshaping local journalism across America.
