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| Industry | Newspaper Publishing |
|---|---|
Key people |
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| Website | boonenewspapers |
Boone Newspapers, Incorporated (BNI) is the parent company of a publishing business that includes dozens ofnewspapers as well asmagazines, 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.[2] The company is based inTuscaloosa, Alabama.[3]
Founded byUniversity of Alabama graduateBuford 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.[4]
After originally owning Tuscaloosa Newspapers Inc. under the guidance ofCarmage Walls,[5] Boone eventually took over the company and purchased additional papers.[6] In 2014, Boone Newspapers bought several newspapers from Evening Post Industries.[7]
Boone, who died of cancer in 1983, won aPulitzer Prize in 1956 for an anti-segregation editorial in theTuscaloosa News, where he was the longtime editor and publisher, about the admission of the first Black student to the University of Alabama.[8] TheEncyclopedia 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."[9]
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 renamedBoone Newsmedia in 2022 "to reflect its expansion into digital-centered media," the Associated Press reported.[4]
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 Steve Stewart was named president and CEO.[5] In June 2024, ownership was transferred amongst eight local media companies that had been jointly owned by Boone and Carpenter. BNI gained full control ofThe Tidewater News andWashington Daily News. CMI gained full control ofThe Post-Searchlight,The Daily Leader,Elizabethton Star,The State Journal,The Oxford Eagle and theDaily Bulletin. CMI also acquired theIronton Tribune from Boone.[10]
Boone Newspapers include: