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mahatmakanejeeves

(57,446 posts)
Tue Aug 7, 2018, 12:20 PM Aug 2018

Stopped the presses, 37 years ago today, The Washington Star



The Evening Star showed up in some surprising places.

(Source: North by Northwest (1959) - titles)

Here are some real ones:







It was actually the Knickerbocker Theatre, but don't get me started on that. The crosstown paper got it wrong too:



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I still miss The Evening Star. They had great columnists. A lot of them ended up at The Washington Times, which was just getting its start at the time.

The Washington Star

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 128 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.
....



Evening Star Building at 1101 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C. The building is a contributing property to the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site.

Final years

On February 2, 1978, Time Inc. purchased the Star for $20 million. Their flagship magazine, Time, was the arch-rival 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 $1 million. On August 7, 1981, after 128 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 in May 1982, almost a year 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), Gloria Borger (CNN), Kate Sylvester (NPR, NBC, Governing Magazine) and Mary McGrory (The Washington Post). The paper's staff also included editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant.

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.
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