The Charleston Gazette-Mail is the result of a July 2015 merger between two historic and ideologically distinct publications: the liberal Charleston Gazette and the conservative Charleston Daily Mail. The Gazette traces its origins to 1873 and was famously shepherded for over a century by the Chilton family, while the Daily Mail was founded in 1914 by former Alaska Governor Walter Eli Clark. For decades, the two papers operated under a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA), sharing printing and business functions while maintaining fiercely independent newsrooms—a rare arrangement that made Charleston one of the last American cities of its size to support two daily voices. 

The publication is nationally renowned for its “crusading” brand of journalism, particularly its investigative reporting on the Appalachian opioid crisis. In 2017, reporter Eric Eyre won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for exposing the massive flow of painkillers into West Virginia. Despite this high-level success, the paper faced severe financial headwinds, including a multimillion-dollar arbitration award involving its former JOA partner and significant pension liabilities. These pressures led the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2018, ending the Chilton family’s long-standing stewardship. 

In March 2018, HD Media LLC, led by Doug Reynolds, acquired the Gazette-Mail. Under this new ownership, the publication has continued to adapt to the digital age by consolidating its print schedule. It eliminated its Monday print edition in 2017 and its Sunday print edition in August 2023, moving instead to a combined weekend edition delivered on Saturdays. Today, it remains West Virginia’s largest newspaper, publishing five days a week and serving as a critical watchdog for the state’s capital and beyond.