The People-Sentinel is a weekly newspaper covering Barnwell County and Allendale County in South Carolina aiming to lessen the region’s news desert and provide factual, non-biased news. Dating back to 1852, The People-Sentinel returned to local ownership when Barnwell native Jonathan Vickery purchased the paper in July 2021 with a vision to expand in staff, coverage areas, investigative series, innovative ideas, and with the main goal of continuing to provide the people of Barnwell with reliable news.

Alexandra Whitbeck joined the staff as a reporter in May 2022, taking the job before ever seeing Barnwell. Since she joined the staff, she has begun multiple investigative series relating to misappropriation of fire department funding, EMS availability amidst nationwide crisis, animal control policy, public transportation issues, and more. She covers town, county, and school board meetings as well as community, business, and organization events all while racing to break news and conducting long-term investigations. She is also tasked with covering court, cops, and crime.

Whitbeck is responsible for the filming, hosting, and production of weekly news videos, event coverage packages, and on-camera interviews. These videos are posted on social media and the newspaper’s website. Videos commonly reach over 1k views on social media, with the highest reaching over 400k.

Whitbeck also manages digital advertising for the web. She works closely with the advertising representative to coordinate digital advertising schedules. Before Whitbeck took over this effort, the newspaper did not have digital advertising. She figured out how to link Google Ads with the website and gauge traction. This new vein of selling ads increased advertisers and therefore revenue for the newspaper, and collected data to be presented to potential advertisers about the reach of their ads/products/service.

Since Whitbeck joined The People-Sentinel team, the newspaper has won the S.C. Press Association General Excellence Award for the Weekly Division two consecutive years in a row (2022, 2023).

She was named the 2023 Weekly Journalist of the Year by the S.C. Press Association and has received numerous awards for her reporting, photography, and video.

Whitbeck also has taken a plethora of pictures for The People-Sentinel, most of which can be found on The People-Sentinel’s Facebook, website, or in print editions.

FACES & PLACES 2023

Faces & Places of Barnwell County is an annual magazine published by The People-Sentinel. It serves as a guide to the county, with information on local resources, services, businesses, and government.

Alexandra Whitbeck is responsible for updating numerous portions of the magazine such as the municipal government sections, healthcare, education, law enforcement, history, libraries, and more. Aspects of this are displayed with graphics created by Whitbeck. She also sources photographs published in the last year to include alongside the articles and information.