| Boone Newspapers | |
| Industry: | Newspaper Publishing |
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Boone Newspapers, Incorporated (BNI) is the parent company of a publishing business that includes dozens of newspapers as well as magazines, other published materials, and internet properties in the United States.[1] It is a private company and owns papers in smaller cities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. The company is based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.[2]
Founded by University of Alabama graduate Buford Boone (1909-1983), as of 2023 the company owned or managed 91 newspapers and other media products across Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.[3]
After originally owning Tuscaloosa Newspapers Inc. under the guidance of Carmage Walls, Boone eventually took over the company and purchased additional papers.[4] In 2014, Boone Newspapers bought several newspapers from Evening Post Industries.[5]
Boone, who died of cancer in 1983, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for an anti-segregation editorial in the Tuscaloosa News, where he was the longtime editor and publisher, about the admission of the first Black student to the University of Alabama.[6] The Encyclopedia of Alabama says he was "one of only a handful of white newspaper leaders in the South to take a moderate stance on civil rights, advocating a calm, level-headed acceptance of desegregation."[7]
His son, James B. "Jim" Boone Jr. (1935-2023), created the media company that bears the family name. Long known as Boone Newspapers, Inc., it was renamed Boone Newsmedia in 2022 "to reflect its expansion into digital-centered media," the Associated Press reported.[3]
After Jim Boone's death in February 2023, Boone Newsmedia announced in October that Todd H. Carpenter, its CEO since 2004, would be separating from the company with several properties that he had jointly owned under his Carpenter Newsmedia LLC company, including newspapers in Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Jim Boone's daughter, Catherine Boone Hadaway, was named senior vice president of Boone Newsmedia and Scott Stewart was named president and CEO.[8] In June 2024, ownership was transferred amongst eight local media companies that had been jointly owned by Boone and Carpenter. BNI gained full control of The Tidewater News and Washington Daily News. CMI gained full control of The Post-Searchlight, The Daily Leader, Elizabethton Star, The State Journal, The Oxford Eagle and the Daily Bulletin. CMI also acquired the Ironton Tribune from Boone.[9]
Boone Newspapers include: