February 8, 1918: Stars & Stripes, the US military newspaper, resumes publication. On November 9, 1861 the Illinois 11th, 18th, and 29th Regiments routed the Confederate forces from Bloomfield, Missouri. As the Union soldiers took control of the town, they noticed the newspaper offices were empty. They decided to print their own newspaper telling of their activities in the region. They called their one-page newssheet Stars & Stripes. The paper ran for four issues.
Publication began again during the First World War. The newspaper was run by an all-military staff. The weekly edition was produced for the American Expeditionary Forces under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. Many of the writers became famous after the war ended. Private Harold Ross became founder and editor of The New Yorker magazine. Lieutenant Grantland Rice became the first nationally renowned sports columnist. At the end of the Great War, Stars & Stripes stopped publication.
Twenty-four years later another great war erupted. On April 18, 1942 the now four-page Stars & Stripes again was hot off the presses from a London print shop. The paper sold for a "tuppence" or two pence, about five cents. The first issue quoted General George C. Marshall quoting Pershing about what a great morale booster the paper had been during the last major war. Soon after the paper hit print, it doubled in size to an 8-page production. During the war, there were up to 32 separate editions of the paper ranging from 8- to 24-page editions. Circulation for the paper reached 1,000,000 during World War II.
After the war ended, the paper remained in print. Today the paper is put out daily in a tabloid format with each issue ranging in length from 40 to 48 pages. In 2006 there were dozens of reporters, printers, and distributers scattered throughout the Middle East. In that year there were 31,510,810 Stars & Stripes papers printed and distributed worldwide with 23,215,511 issues put out in the contingency areas. There were more than 1.5 million PDF downloads of the paper from their website, about 4,000 per day.
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"I was banned from Stars and Stripes because I was detrimental to discipline. That got me news stories and got me published all over the world and boosted my circulation like nothing (else)." - Mort Walker
"By the etiquette of war, it is permitted to none below the rank of newspaper correspondent to dictate to the general in the field." - Mark Twain
"Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress." - Wendell Phillips
"If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event... what kind of film would you use?" - unknown
Comments
The media is so powerful! I am so very interested in the different kinds of media, the ethics of the media and what and why people read the media. Lots to think about.
That last comment made me laugh, which makes me feel a bit guilty.
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