Marines

Photo Information

The logo of the Quantico Sentry (called the flag in the newspaper business) was redesigned numerous times and the different renditions are depicted here in the 25th anniversary edition of the paper.

Photo by Valerie O'Berry

Stop the presses! Oldest paper in the Marine Corps comes to an end

17 Apr 2018 | Valerie O’Berry, The last editor of the Quantico Sentry Marine Corps Base Quantico

As the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end.”  So it goes with Marine Corps Base Quantico’s (MCBQ) newspaper the Quantico Sentry.

The Quantico Sentry, the first, thus the oldest, newspaper in the Marine Corps, published its last issue March 22, 2018 and the contract to produce it officially ended March 30.  The newspaper was published for almost 83 years, with the first issue printed on May 31, 1935.

Like other military papers the Quantico Sentry was a civilian enterprise newspaper, produced at no cost to the Marine Corps through advertising sales.  In addition to no cost printing and distribution provided by ad sales, the most recent contractor also provided writers and a designer for the paper.  From the beginning, enlisted Public Affairs Marines were assigned to the Communications Strategy and Operations (CommStrat) Office as writers, photographers and editors for the paper until that manpower was reduced several years ago, necessitating the need for the contract to require this support. 

The Quantico Sentry ended publication in part due to the slide in advertising revenue that is reflective of the larger commercial newspaper industry which has seen advertising sales decrease over the last few decades. According to the Pew Research Center, the newspaper industry took its biggest ad revenue hit during the 2008 recession.  Unfortunately, ad sales didn’t recover in print publications after the recession ended, as they had in the past, and ad sales have been on the decline ever since.  As the population shifts to the use of handheld devices more and more every day, with a growing preference for getting their news from digital platforms, traditional newspapers are shutting their doors, moving completely into the digital space, or a combination of digital and print to appeal to this shifting demographic.  The newspaper business is currently struggling to adjust their business model in order to survive.  Large newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post have gathered approximately 4 mil
lion online subscribers due to their appeal to a national audience, while smaller, local papers are struggling and continue to cut staff and go to other lengths to stay in business as advertisers focus more on digital advertising and promotion through social media.

The Quantico Sentry base newspaper tried to survive today’s digital age by going from a weekly publication to a bi-monthly publication in April 2016 to cut costs and also producing an online edition at www.quanticosentryonline.com. Staff was also reduced to one writer and a part time designer.  The paper was also changed from a metro-style newspaper to a tabloid, saving money on paper.  After a readership survey was done last year by the CommStrat Office to assess what readers wanted in the Quantico Sentry, changes were made to the paper to keep it going. We implemented several suggestions from the survey including putting news on the front page (instead of just a photo) to attract more readers, implemented some design changes and even put more base news and community news in the paper as the survey indicated these were favorite sections among readers. However, the paper only survived for one year after the survey changes were made.  The contract solicitation to produce the paper was released for bid, but unf
ortunately, there were no bids due to the difficulties facing the newspaper industry as a whole, especially local, weekly papers, which are having a particularly hard time maintaining revenue to stay alive.  The Quantico Sentry was no different from these other publications.

When the paper started in 1935, a time when most adults read the paper, there was much excitement surrounding the new publication, which printed Quantico news, as well as news from the surrounding communities.  Being the first publication of its kind in the Marine Corps, it was considered to be an innovation whose time had come.  The first issue was an eight page, metro-style newspaper that took six months of work to bring to life. 

The Quantico Sentry was the brainchild of a Marine officer’s wife, Mrs. Ruth Chambers Hamner.  Her husband was Marine Capt. George Carroll Hamner, stationed at MCBQ in 1934.  She came up with the idea because she felt that the Marines and civilians deserved to know what was happening aboard base.  She said that ink was in her blood as her father was a newspaperman himself.  She got the approval of then-Commandant of the Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Russell to start the first newspaper in the Marine Corps. 

In an article written by Tom Bartlett, which was published in Leatherneck Magazine, Mrs. Hamner said that the commandant was very enthusiastic about the idea. “He told me that it sounded like the best thing to happen to Quantico since the invention of the wheel!”

Mrs. Hamner started the paper with the help of Chaplain Hohl, also stationed at Quantico at the time.  Unfortunately, the first four or five issues of the paper are lost to history, as they cannot be found in the Gray Research Library’s Special Collections where all issues of the Sentry are preserved.   The first issue that can be found in hard copy is the July 1935 paper.  A cursory look at the historic paper shows that it contains the same news that could be found in most newspapers of that era, including a society column, a book corner with a list of books to read, a fashion column, hard news with headlines such as “One Killed, Another Hurt in Auto Crash,” and news about the base such as training and other news that was happening. The tagline for the paper was “The Newspaper that Reaches the Service People.”  Over the years, the tagline changed along with MCBQ’s mission, and in the final issue it was, “Serving the Corps’ Future in Leadership Development and Warfighting Innovation.” 

Another bit of interesting trivia is that from 1943-44 the name of the Quantico Sentry was changed to the Quantico Marine Sentry.  That was short lived though, and the name the Quantico Sentry stuck through more than eight decades of publishing, avoiding change by subsequent editors and commanders.   We will perhaps never know why the name was changed for one year or why it reverted back to the original name.

Instead of getting base news through the Quantico Sentry, the CommStrat Office will continue to share  news and information digitally to the base and the surrounding communities through the base Facebook page (facebook.com/marinecorpsbasequantico); Twitter (twitter.com/MCB_Quantico); Instagram (www.instagram.com/mcbquantico/); and through the base website (www.quantico.marines.mil). 

The end of the Quantico Sentry is certainly sad and the CommStrat Office (at least me, the editor) will miss the excitement of the hustle, bustle and adrenaline rush it takes to meet deadlines while enduring last minute, necessary layout and copy changes that go along with producing a paper.  One final fun fact is that there is an error in the last issue of the Quantico Sentry.  Where the header typically states “Year [current consecutive issue year] then No. [issue number] it simply says “No. xx.”  We thought it was ironically fitting.

 


More Media

Marine Corps Base Quantico