Benjamin Carmage Walls (October 28, 1908 - November 22, 1998) was a newspaperman in the United States. He owned numerous community newspapers and founded

Southern Newspapers Southern Newspapers Inc. (SNI) is a publishing holding company headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company was founded as Southern Newspapers, Inc., of Tennessee in 1967 by Carmage Walls. Its flagship paper, the ''Galveston County Daily News'' is ...

Biography

Walls was born October 28, 1908 in

Crisp County, Georgia Crisp County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 20,128. The county seat is Cordele. The county was created on August 17, 1905, from Dooly County and named for Ge ...

moving to

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

while still young where he attended high school. He got started with the newspaper business when a stranger approached him as child and asked if he wanted a job "stuffing newspapers". He took the job and worked up from being a "stuffer" inserting sentimental sections in the main newspaper until he was a "right-hand man" of the head man Charles E. Marsh. From this start he went on to purchase and invest in newspaper businesses over large parts of the U.S. from Texas up to Ohio. Walls was known nationally for his newspaper operations from around the 1930s. During his 60 some odd years in the newspaper business he owned various papers. He opposed

George C. Wallace George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...

's segregationist policies. The Southern Newspaper Publishers Association presented a Carmage Walls Commentary Prize. As of 2022

underwrites the prize. Southern Newspapers' CEO is his daughter Lissa Walls Cribb In June 1953 he wrote a letter laying out some of his newspaper business philosophies starting by stating "wealth cannot be made by doing nothing" and declaring that newspapers are a "semi-public utility".

Death and recognition

Walls died aged 90 at his Houston home on November 22, 1998 and was survived by his wife, Martha Anna Walls, four children, a sister and a brother. After his death his widow and daughter carried forward his work in 2012 they owned and managed 15 newspaper operations, mostly in Texas. In 2008 he was inducted into the Alabama Newspaper Hall of Honor, then in 2012 he was inducted into the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame.

References

1908 births 1998 deaths American newspaper founders {{Improve categories, date=November 2022