Among operations the Pentagon is eyeing in efforts to cut its overall budget: stopping the presses of Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that made its debut in 1861 during the Civil War and since World War I has been eagerly read mainly by military personnel around the world, reports Grumpy Editor.
The daily newspaper, receiving a slim $7.8 million Defense Department subsidy for 2014, doesn’t make much of a dent in the Pentagon’s overall budget with defense spending this year passing the $700 billion mark. But the Pentagon next year faces a $52 billion cut from planned spending levels and every one of its operations is being scrutinized.
(Yet, budget-cutting Pentagon still has a fat checkbook. An Associated Press story over the weekend reports the Pentagon is buying more than five dozen Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to outfit Afghanistan’s security forces. Price tag: more than $1 billion.)
Stars and Stripes generates a good chunk of its budget internally via advertising, sales and special issues on education, insurance, retirement planning and travel.
Over the years, Stars and Stripes provides an editorially independent voice to its readers, now numbering about 200,000. That’s down from its peak of more than one million during World War II but today the newspaper is seeing a growing online presence.
The publication maintains news bureaus in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East to provide first-hand reporting on events in those theaters. In addition to news and sports, its contents contain all the elements of an American hometown paper. That includes comics, puzzles and entertainment stories.
Stars and Stripes got its start when 10 Union soldiers utilized the abandoned newspaper office of the Bloomfield (Mo.) Herald. (Returning to its roots, The Stars and Stripes Museum/Library is located in that city.)
At one point, the newspaper had 25 publishing locations in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.
The number of editions touched 35 during World War II, with up to 24 adless pages per issue. Pacific editions, also without ads, started in 1945. Stars and Stripes has since been a prime source of daily information for U.S. forces from the Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War to Iraq and Afghanistan.
While in past years most staffers wore U.S. military uniforms representing Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, today its publisher and most of its employees are civilians.
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A (huh?) report from the Federal Reserve last week noted the U.S. economy in recent months expanded at a “modest to moderate” pace. Now, that’s a precise, nifty indicator.
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