Boone Newsmedia, Inc.

Mass media publisher and owner

Boone Newsmedia Inc. (BNI) is the parent company of a newspaper and publishing business in the United States that includes magazines, various other published materials, and internet properties. Boone Newsmedia manages 91 newspapers, in addition to websites, shopping guides, and magazines in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.

James B. “Jim” Boone, Jr., was the company’s founder and longtime chairman. Boone died in February 2023. A private company, members of Jim Boone’s family control BNI; other stockholders in BNI have financial interests in BNI-operated subsidiaries, Bainbridge Media, LLC, a recently created company owned principally by key executives of Boone Newspapers, Inc., purchased the newspaper and an affiliated printing plant from Griffin on June 1, 2008.

The Bainbridge Post, a weekly newspaper, was established by E.H. Pat Griffin in 1907 and in 1915 combined The Post and the Searchlight. The newly combined newspaper became The Post-Searchlight. This newspaper incorporates the assets of a number of earlier Decatur County newspapers, including The Weekly Tribune, The Globe, and The Democrat. Steve Stewart, President and CEO, lives in Smithfield, Virginia, near other key executive personnel and other communities served by BNI publications. These include Bainbridge Media, LLC, a company created in 2008 owned principally by key executives of Boone Newspapers, Inc.

They purchased the newspaper and a printing plant from June 1, 2008. BNI has its corporate origins in Tuscaloosa Newspapers, Inc. (TNI), a company that leased The Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News from Public Welfare Foundation, Inc. (PWF) from 1951 until 1981. TNI went through several intra-company mergers and name changes from 1981 to 1983, following its decision not to renew its lease on The Tuscaloosa News. Beginning in 1981, PWF operated The Tuscaloosa News for several years. It has since been sold twice, once to The New York Times Company.

PWF was principally funded in the 1950s by the late Charles Marsh, who gave The Tuscaloosa News, The Gadsden (Alabama) Times, and The Spartanburg (South Carolina) Herald-Journal to PWF.