Type Daily newspaper Editor Chris Segal Photo editor Janet S. Carter | Publisher Michael Distelhorst Sports editor Junious Smith III | |
Owner(s) New Media Investment Group | ||
The Free Press is an award-winning daily newspaper based in Kinston, North Carolina. It has served the city of Kinston and Lenoir County, North Carolina since 1882. The Free Press was owned by Freedom Communications until 2012, when Freedom sold its Florida and North Carolina papers to Halifax Media Group. In November 2014, Halifax announced the sale of The Free Press and its other properties to New Media Investment Group Inc. In 2015, Halifax was acquired by New Media Investment Group.
It was a broadsheet-format daily until June 1, 2009, when it and two sister dailies, the New Bern, North Carolina Sun Journal and the Jacksonville, North Carolina Daily News converted to a berliner-style format. Since the format change all three papers are laid out and are published in Jacksonville.
The Free Press (and its sister publications in New Bern and Jacksonville) returned to the broadsheet format on May 1, 2014, after readers requested the change.
The Free Press won 47 North Carolina Press Association awards from 2010–12, the most in a three-year period in the paper's history. It was named the top newspaper in North Carolina's Class D (Daily, 12,000-and-under) in 2014.