Gazette, Daily Mail become the Charleston Gazette-Mail

Susan Chilton Shumate

The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette and Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail operated independently for readers and advertisers until Jan. 1, 1958, when the owners merged the business, advertising, circulation and production departments into a single corporation.

On July 19, the two newspapers combined newsroom functions with the exception of editorial page content.

Susan Chilton Shumate will be publisher of the new paper and Brad McElhinny and Rob Byers will be co-editors of the new paper.

The following is reprinted from the Charleston Gazette-Mail, edited slightly:

This is not one paper gobbling up the other. It is a combination of the two newsroom staffs working in cooperation to produce the most comprehensive news product in West Virginia. We are committed to producing the best example of journalism delivered to your home, in the paper boxes, on your mobile devices and on your computer every morning.

Our daily product will be stronger in several ways:

• We are committed to two completely independent editorial pages – the one on the left representing the Gazette's progressive view and the one on the right keeping the Daily Mail's conservative view. This format has been enjoyed by our readers for more than a decade in our combined Saturday publication and more recently in our combined holiday editions.
• We will produce more local coverage than either newspaper could individually. We can dedicate increased resources to investigative reporting and bolster our online presence with more breaking news and multimedia. For West Virginia features, photography and sports, the Charleston Gazette-Mail will be second to none.
• We will retain the current comics, puzzles and syndicated features that are currently enjoyed by both the Gazette and Daily Mail readers.

The combined paper will be a showcase for the talented journalists readers have enjoyed in the Charleston Gazette and the Charleston Daily Mail.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail will be the strongest source of local news coverage and our goal is to produce an excellent newspaper for our readers. This new publication is to maintain the content and values of the Gazette and Daily Mail.

We are proud that a city the size of Charleston, W.Va., has been able to support two outstanding daily newspapers as long as it has. We look forward to continuing to provide readers with news on government, business, sports, entertainment and all of the other high-quality coverage they have come to expect from us.