The newspaper traces its history back to two weeklies, the Clinton Republican (begun in 1838 as the Western Whig, the name changed the next year),[1] and The Wilmington Journal (founded 1868), that merged into The Journal-Republican in 1912.[4] The Wilmington News Journal was founded by W. J. Galvin on Oct. 15, 1915, originally called the Wilmington Daily News.
In 1916, it merged with the semi-weekly Journal Republican and became known as the Wilmington Daily News Journal. It was owned by the Galvin family until it was sold to the Brown Publishing Company in 1986.[5] In 2010, Brown declared bankruptcy and was reconstituted as Ohio Community Media, which later became part of Civitas/Versa.[6] The company, including the News Journal, was purchased for an undisclosed sum in 2011 by Versa Capital Management.[7]
Shortly after a website redesign in early 2023, the News Journal announced on February 21, 2023 that the printed edition, previously published Tuesday through Saturday, would publish only on Wednesday and Saturday.[2]