| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Independent |
| Publisher | Danny J. Bakewell |
| Founded | 1933 |
| Headquarters | 3800 Crenshaw Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90008 United States |
| Official website | lasentinel.net |
The Los Angeles Sentinel is a weekly African American-owned newspaper published in Los Angeles, California. The paper boasts of reaching 125,000 readers as of 2004[update], making it the oldest, largest and most influential African-American newspaper in the Western United States.
The Sentinel was founded and first published in 1933 by Col. Leon H. Washington for black readers. Since then the newspaper has been considered a staple of black life in Los Angeles. The paper mainly focuses on and thus enjoys most of its circulation in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, Inglewood and Compton.
On March 17, 2004 the Sentinel was purchased and came under the direction of real estate developer and community activist Danny Bakewell. Recently Bakewell has updated equipment at the paper's publishing facility and has worked to improve marketing and increase subscriptions.
Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor, resigned from his public relations post on August 17, 2006 with Wal-Mart after he was quoted in the Sentinel for saying that urban communities should welcome in Wal-Mart, since the retailer could push out mom-and-pop shops that had allegedly been overcharging poor people. The controversial aspect of Young's interview was its racial dimension. He said: "I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs."
The Los Angeles Sentinel is circulated throughout Southern California. Distribution is contracted out to the Los Angeles Times. Outside Metropolitan Los Angeles, The Los Angeles Sentinel is delivered to homes by the United States Postal Service.