The Washington Star
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The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News
and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper
published in Washington, D.C. between 1852 and 1981. For most of that time, it was the
city's newspaper of record, and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory
and cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman. On August 7, 1981, after 130 years, the Washington Star
ceased publication and filed for bankruptcy.
In the bankruptcy sale, The Washington Post purchased the land and buildings owned by the Star,
including its printing presses.
History
The Washington Star was founded on December 16, 1852 by Captain Joseph Borrows
Tate. Originally headquartered in Washington's "Newspaper Row" on Pennsylvania Avenue, Tate initially gave the paper the name The Daily
Evening Star, and it would be renamed several times before becoming Washington
Star by the late 1970s. In 1853, Texas surveyor and newspaper entrepreneur
William Douglas Wallach purchased the paper. As the sole owner of the paper for the
next 14 years, Wallach built up the paper by capitalizing on reporting of the American Civil War, among other things. In 1867, the group of investors Crosby Stuart Noyes, Samuel H. Kauffmann and George Adams acquired
the paper by each of the investors putting up USD$33,333.33. The paper would remain
family-owned and operated for the next four generations.
In 1907, subsequent Pulitzer Prize
winning cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman joined the Star. Berryman was most famous for his
1902 cartoon of President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, "Drawing
the Line in Mississippi," which spurred the creation of the teddy bear.[1]
During his career, Berryman drew thousands of cartoons commenting on American
Presidents and politics. Presidential figures included former Presidents
Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. The cartoons
satirized both Democrats and Republicans and covered topics such as drought,
farm relief, and food prices; representation of the District of Columbia in
Congress; labor strikes and legislation; campaigning and elections; political
patronage; European coronations; the America's Cup; and the Atomic Bomb.
Berryman's career continued at the Star until he collapsed on the lobby
floor one morning in 1949 and died shortly after of a heart ailment.[1]
The next major change to the
newspaper came in 1938 when the three owning families diversified their
interests. On May 1, the Star purchased the M. A. Leese Radio
Corporation and acquired Washington's oldest radio station,
WMAL,
in the process. Renamed the Evening Star Broadcasting Company, the 1938
acquisition would figure later in the 1981 demise of the newspaper.
The Star's influence and
circulation peaked in the 1950s; it constructed a new printing plant in Southeast
Washington capable of printing millions of
copies, but found itself unable to cope with changing times. Nearly all top
editorial and business staff jobs were held by members of the owning families,
including a Kauffmann general manager who had gained a reputation for anti-Semitism,
driving away advertisers. Suburbanization and television were accelerating the decline of evening
newspapers in favor of morning dailies. The Post meanwhile acquired its
morning rival, the Times-Herald, in 1954 and steadily drew readers and
advertisers away from the falling Star. By the 1960s, the Post
was Washington's leading newspaper.
In 1972, the Star purchased
and absorbed one of DC's few remaining competing newspapers, The
Washington Daily News. For a short period of time after the merger, both "The
Evening Star" and "The Washington Daily News"
mastheads appeared on the front page. The paper soon was retitled "Washington
Star News" and finally, "The Washington Star" by the
late 1970s.
In 1973, the Star was
targeted for clandestine purchase by interests close to the South African
Apartheid
government in its propaganda war, in what became known as the Muldergate Scandal. The Star, whose editorial policy had always been
conservative, was seen as favorable to South Africa at the time.
In early 1975, the owning families
sold their interests in the paper to Joseph L. Allbritton, a Texas
multimillionaire who was known as a corporate turnaround artist. Allbritton,
who also owned Riggs Bank, then the most prestigious bank in the capital, planned to
use profits from WMAL-AM-FM-TV to shore up the newspaper's finances. The Federal Communications Commission
stymied him with rules on media cross-ownership,
however; WMAL-AM-FM was sold off in 1977, and the TV station was renamed WJLA-TV.
On October 1, 1975, press operators
at the Post went on strike,
severely damaging all printing presses before leaving the building. Allbritton
would not assist Katharine Graham, the owner of the Post, in any way, refusing to
print his rival's papers on the Star's presses since that likely would
have caused the Star to be struck by the press operators as well.
Allbritton also had major disagreements with editor Jim Bellows
over editorial policy; Bellows left the Star for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
Unable to make the Star profitable, Allbritton explored other options,
including a joint
operating agreement with the Post.
Final
years
On February 2, 1978, Time Warner
(then known as Time Inc.) purchased the Star for US$20 million. Their
flagship magazine, Time, was archrival to Newsweek,
which was published by The
Washington Post Company, and the
purchase seemed natural. Management issues continued to plague the publication,
however. Editor-in-Chief Murray Gart, former chief of correspondents at Time,
had no experience managing a newspaper and little experience even writing for
one.[citation needed] An effort to draw readers with localized special
"zonal" metro news sections did little to help circulation. The Star
lacked the resources to produce the sort of ultra-local coverage zonal editions
demanded and ended up running many of the same regional stories in all of its
local sections. An economic downturn resulted in monthly losses of over US$1
million. On August 7, 1981, after 130 years, the Washington Star ceased
publication. In the bankruptcy sale, the Post purchased the land and
buildings owned by the Star, including its printing presses.
Many of the people who worked for
the Star went to work for the newly formed The Washington Times which began operations shortly after the Star went
out of business.
Writers who worked at the Star
in its last days included Nick Adde (Army Times),
Stephen Aug (ABC News),
Michael Isikoff (Newsweek), Howard Kurtz (The Washington Post), Fred Hiatt (The Washington Post) Sheilah Kast (ABC News),
Jane Mayer
(The New Yorker), Chris Hanson (Columbia
Journalism Review), Jeremiah O'Leary (The Washington Times), Chuck Conconi (Washingtonian), Crispin Sartwell (Creators Syndicate), Maureen Dowd (The New York Times), novelist Randy Sue Coburn, Michael DeMond Davis, Lance Gay, (Scripps Howard News Service):Jules Witcover
(The Baltimore Sun), Jack Germond (The Baltimore Sun), Judy Bachrach (Vanity
Fair), Lyle Denniston
(The Baltimore Sun), Fred
Barnes (Weekly Standard), Kate Sylvester (NPR, NBC, Governing Magazine) and Mary McGrory
(The Washington Post).
Pulitzer
Prizes
- 1944: Clifford K. Berryman,
for Editorial Cartooning,
"Where Is the Boat Going?"
- 1950: James T. Berryman,
Editorial Cartooning,
for "All Set for a Super-Secret Session in Washington."
- 1958: George Beveridge,
Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, for "Metro, City of Tomorrow."
- 1959: Mary Lu Werner, Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, "For her comprehensive year-long coverage of the
(school) integration crisis."
- 1960: Miriam Ottenberg,
Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, "For a series of seven articles exposing a
used-car racket in Washington, D.C., that victimized many unwary
buyers."
- 1966: Haynes Johnson, for National Reporting,
for his distinguished coverage of the civil rights conflict centered about Selma, Alabama, and particularly his reporting of its aftermath.
- 1974: James R. Polk, National Reporting,
for his disclosure of alleged irregularities in the financing of the
campaign to re-elect President Nixon in 1972.
- 1975: Mary McGrory, Commentary, for
her commentary on public affairs during 1974.
- 1979: Edwin M. Yoder Jr., Editorial Writing.
- 1981: Jonathan Yardley, Criticism, for
book reviews.
The entire wiki article can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Star
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