W.E. “Ned” Chilton III, over nearly three decades years as the third-generation owner/publisher of the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia’s largest newspaper, developed a philosophy of journalism called “Sustained Outrage,” which stressed ongoing investigative reports about and direct commentary on society's major social and commercial issues. These efforts included a five-year campaign to end the “ghoul system” in the state; crafting a strategy of suing lawyers who sued him for libel; successfully suing for open records; becoming the first in the nation to wrest his own files as well as the newspaper’s from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; using his own reporters to investigate his fellow publishers in West Virginia; and many other crusades.
This thesis examines those efforts in the context of his overall philosophy, the shifting industry trends toward consolidated ownership, the battle to define and uphold First Amendment values, and the state's own struggle to shake off historic poverty and provincialism.