|
|
||
For the first time since the Civil War, the military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, is available in the United States--exclusively in The Free Lance-Star
Date published: 12/17/2008 By Ed Jones UNION TROOPS Sensing an opportunity, the Yankees decided to start their own newspaper. They called it Stars and Stripes. Thus began a unique institution--an independent newspaper within America's military that would serve U.S. forces In the years since the Civil War, Stars and Stripes has been distributed exclusively overseas--until now. The first domestic print edition of the paper in almost a century and a half will be inserted into Friday's Free Lance-Star. We will be the first newspaper in the United States to offer the new U.S. edition of Stars and Stripes. Friday's debut will be followed by a second edition in January. Then, in February, we hope to begin weekly publication of the U.S. edition of Stars and Stripes--a 16-page, full-color tabloid that will be put together at Stars and Stripes' Washington headquarters and printed at our Fredericksburg facility. What will our readers gain from this new product? For the significant chunk of our audience with military ties, as well as for others, the U.S. edition of Stars and Stripes will provide the most compelling articles from the paper's five international editions, along with stateside reporting of interest to the military. That news will come from an organization that has been heralded over the decades for solid journalism. Onetime staff members include Harold Ross, who founded The New Yorker magazine, drama critic Alexander Woollcott, and Andy Rooney of TV's "60 Minutes." Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" cartoons became a beloved feature of the paper during World War II. Today, Terry Leonard, who served as an Associated Press foreign correspondent for most of his career, oversees the continuing tradition of journalistic excellence at Stars and Stripes. Though owned by the Department of Defense, Stars and Stripes has a mandate from Congress to provide independent news and information to U.S. servicemen and women and to Department of Defense civilians. Leonard noted in an e-mail to me that his paper's independence "is something we guard jealously."
Date published: 12/17/2008
The editor says that the newspaper takes it's editorial independence seriously, yet Stars and Stripes was just called on the carpet for allowing the DOD to run its propoganda machine through it. It appears that several workers at the newspaper broke laws and lsot $4.1 million!
I'm excited to see the new product, but ...
I look forward to reading. Let's hope it displaces the biased liberal AP feeds regularly regurgitated in the FLS.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
