Valley Sentinel was founded in 2020 by two 20-somethings who believed that community journalism could — and should — be done better. With less than $5,000, no investors and a heap of sweat equity, Nicole Aimone and Taylor Scott — both disillusioned by the corporate newsrooms they came from — launched an independent, free, biweekly newspaper in Spring Green, Wisconsin — a town of just over 1,500 people and a cultural heartbeat that rivals cities ten times its size.

Editor-owned, majority woman-owned and currently entirely volunteer-run, Valley Sentinel is fiercely independent. Its editorial voice is unapologetically local and principled — whether it’s investigating open meetings violations, critiquing state-level university closures or lending its platform to facilitate grassroots initiatives. The paper believes in truth-telling with heart, educating rather than condescending and publishing with the radical belief that access to news should never depend on your wallet.