Charleston Daily Mail Information

The Charleston Daily Mail merged with the Charleston Gazette on July 20, 2015, to form the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Founded in 1880, the Charleston Daily Mail was a long-time producer of multi-platform news products serving West Virginia. The Daily Mail was given stable ownership in 1914 by former governor of Alaska, Walter Eli Clark. The newspaper's motto, as chosen by Gov. Clark, is "Without, or With, Offence to Friends or Foes, I Sketch Your World Exactly as It Goes." The Daily Mail for many years was owned by the Clay family, which sold it to Thompson Newspapers in 1987. The newspaper was also owned by Media News Group, a subsidiary of Digital First Media. J.D. Maurice, its editor of many years until his retirement in 1978, won the Sigma Delta Chi award for editorial writing in 1958 and the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished editorial writing in 1975. The paper featured an "everyman" cartoon character, Charley West (or occasionally his wife, Virginia "Ginny" West, or their dog, Cap West) who has a one-line comment on the news of the day on its front page. The Daily Mail traditionally was an afternoon newspaper with a conservative editorial page. In January 2009 it switched to morning publication. Up until July 2015, the Daily Mail was in a joint operating agreement with the Gazette. They are located in the same building in Charleston, W.Va. The Daily Mail published independently Monday through Friday. The two newspapers published the combined Saturday Gazette-Mail and Sunday Gazette-Mail.