Introduction	Awards	History
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About Stars and Stripes

Stars and Stripes is a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military, DoD civilians, contractors, and their families. Unique among the many military publications, Stars and Stripes operates as a First Amendment newspaper, free of control and censorship. We have published continuously in Europe since 1942, and since 1945 in the Pacific. Today, our readers number well over 350,000.

Stars and Stripes now maintains news bureaus in Europe, Pacific and the Middle East to provide first-hand reporting on events in those theaters. In addition to news and sports, our daily paper contains all the elements of the hometown paper our service members left behind, from "Dear Abby" to coupons, comics and crossword puzzles. In all, we publish five daily editions: Mideast, Europe, Japan, Korea and Okinawa and a weekly in the UK.

Currently, our Mideast edition is command-sponsored and distributed at no charge to downrange troops. Elsewhere, you can find our paper for sale in coin boxes and at Military Exchange store locations. We also offer affordable home delivery to subscribers in several countries: Belguim, England, Germany, Guam, Italy, Japan, Korea, Spain and Turkey. For information on how to subscribe, just click on the country to which you are planning to transfer.

In addition to our regular newspaper, Stars and Stripes produces useful and informative supplements. Among these are Stripes GAMER (six issues a year), and special issues on other topics such as insurance, retirement planning, and Internet shopping. Our Welcome to Europe Guide is published three times annually; Destination Paradise is published for the Pacific community twice a year.

View our 2009 Supplement Calendar to see a list of upcoming publications.

Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community. Editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command, it provides commercially available U.S. and world news and objective staff-produced stories relevant to the military community in a balanced, fair, and accurate manner. By keeping its audience informed, Stars and Stripes enhances military readiness and better enables U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship.

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Awards

Stars and Stripes routinely garners recognition for excellence. Our Ground Truth series on the war in Iraq helped identify where equipment and supplies were most needed; the military subsequently acted to correct many of those deficiencies.

• 2007 Military Reporters and Editors Awards
  • Overseas coverage (less than 100,000 circulation)
  • Recipient: Monte Morin
• 2006 Military Reporters and Editors Awards
  • Overseas coverage (less than 100,000 circulation)
  • Recipients: Monte Morin, Joe Giordono
  • Honorable mention: Nancy Montgomery
  • Photography (less than 100,000 circulation)
  • Recipient: Fred Zimmerman
• 2006 NAA ACME Award of Excellence
  • Youth Oriented Ad Series/Campaign: Stripes GAMER
  • Entertainment Promotions: Tales from the Crib
• 2005 Military Reporters and Editors Awards
  • Overseas print coverage (less than 100,000 circulation)
  • Recipients: Steve Liewer
  • Photography (less than 100,000 circulation)
  • Recipient: Terry Boyd
• Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award:  First Amendment, Finalist 2003
• 2004 Excellence in Journalism Award (American Legion): Ground Truth Series
• Distinguished Reporting Citation from the Military Reporters and Editors Association
• 2004 Editor and Publisher Photo of the Year: Honorable Mention

Facts & Figures for 2006

• Deployed dozens of reporters and printing & distribution staff to the Middle East
• Printed and distributed 31,510,810 Stars & Stripes newspapers worldwide
• Printed and distributed 23,215,511 Stars and Stripes newspapers in contingency areas
• Delivered over 1.5 million downloads of our paper in PDF, averaging over 4,000 downloads per day

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History

Stars and Stripes began as a newspaper for Union troops during the Civil War. We resumed publication during World War I and again in World War II.

We have been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have been in the field with American Marines, sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo. Our staff was on the ground during the U.S. military assistance in the 2005 tsunami relief effort and has been on assignment in the Middle East since 2001.

Stars and Stripes prints five editions daily, sold at military facilities overseas, as well as distributed at no cost to our service members in contingency areas. The European edition differs from the Pacific editions substantially in order to better serve our readers in each theater. We publish wherever our troops go, so where we set up operations always depends on the deployment plans of the military. Currently, we publish different editions for Europe, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, and the Middle East.

In May of 2004 we began publishing an electronic version, available to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

On any given day, the average (print) daily newspaper readership of Stars and Stripes exceeds 365,000*.

The European and Pacific editions have regional offices and their own editorial, marketing, sales and graphic design staffs. The offices are located in Griesheim, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan, respectively. Layout and composition of our different editions is handled at our central office in Washington, D.C., and transmitted by satellite to print sites in Germany, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Djibouti.

Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, Stars and Stripes has published a Mideast edition. The pass-along rate is usually higher for deployed troops; a copy of Stars and Stripes may be read by as many as seven different people. The number of copies printed varies with the number of troops. At the end of July 2008, our daily distribution averaged nearly 52,000 copies in Iraq, 11,000 in Kuwait, 1,200 in Qatar, 123 in Bahrain, 4,000 in Afghanistan, and 400 in Djibouti in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

A Uniquely American Newspaper

The first paper named Stars and Stripes was produced by Union soldiers during the Civil War, in 1861. Using the facilities of a captured newspaper plant in Bloomfield, Mo., they ran off a one-page paper. That was our debut — and it appeared only four times.

Stars and Stripes was revived during World War I. Our first edition appeared on February 8, 1918, in Paris. It was produced weekly by an all-military staff to serve the doughboys of the American Expeditionary Force under General of the Armies John J. "Black Jack" Pershing.

Some of its staff became famous journalists, including Pvt. Harold Ross, who later became the founder and editor of The New Yorker magazine, and Lt. Grantland Rice, who became the nation's first celebrated sports writer.

The newspaper ceased printing after the war ended, but 24 years later, on April 18, 1942, Stars and Stripes enjoyed its second renaissance. During World War II, a small group of servicemen founded a four-page weekly paper in a London print shop. Working in very tight quarters, the enterprising group quickly established an audience.

They sold each copy for "tuppence," (two English pence or about 5 cents), and in no time had doubled their page count to eight pages, printing daily instead of weekly.

Operations expanded, following GIs to the battlefront to bring them the news. During World War II, Stars and Stripes published as many as 32 separate editions, with page counts running as high as 24 pages per issue.

At one time, there were as many as 25 publishing locations in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific.

The Pacific edition was launched a week after VE day (Victory in Europe, May 8, 1945) and became the forerunner of the Pacific Stars and Stripes.

Championed by Our Military

The first edition of Stars and Stripes published during World War II featured an interview with Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff. Marshall quoted Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the World War I American Expeditionary Force (AEF), who said that Stripes had been a major factor in sustaining morale in the AEF.

"We have his (Pershing's) authority for the statement that no official control was ever exercised over the matter which went into Stars and Stripes," Marshall said. "It always was entirely for and by the soldier. This policy is to govern the conduct of the new publication."

Putting out the newspaper in the midst of bombs and battles was no small feat and staffers were always on the move, setting up shop as close to the front as possible. The product of their efforts was in demand and circulation reached 1,000,000 during World War II.

Stars and Stripes also found a special champion and protector in Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander. Eisenhower enforced a hands-off policy in regard to Stars and Stripes, routinely defending us against whatever complaints and protest ensued from material we published.

World War II ended, but the command wasn't ready to dismantle Stars and Stripes.

In the end, the military instructed us to continue publishing as long as U.S. troops remained abroad. Since 1942, Stars and Stripes remains in publication without interruption.

As wartime military staff began returning to the States, the newspaper began replacing them with a full-time civilian staff. Gradually they built a top-of-the-line team of professional journalists and newspaper business people, augmented by a small contingent of military journalists and managers.

Stripes reporters and photographers continued to join American troops in the field. Throughout the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, Stars and Stripes published the news. It took not only courage but also perseverance to get the news to the readers, and our staff proved equal to the task over and over again.

Throughout the 1990's, including Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Provide Comfort, our dedicated staff of journalists and business specialists showed its camaraderie and support. The paper established a Middle East bureau for reporting on the war, and circulation of Stars and Stripes nearly doubled within weeks.

When American troops deployed to Bosnia in 1995, Stars and Stripes was there to greet them. While delivering 12,000 papers to Bosnia, Stars and Stripes covered the civilians, service members, families and communities supporting deployed personnel as well as actions in the Bosnian region.

From the outset of Operation Enduring Freedom, Stars and Stripes reporters were there to report first-hand. The war in Afghanistan continues to be amply covered. The newspaper initially was printed in Europe and shipped. The desire to make our deliveries timelier led to our setting up print operation in Kabul in November of 2004.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Stripes reporters have embedded with military units in Kuwait and Iraq, as well as on Navy ships in the region. Staffers are still reporting from those countries, and today a separate Middle East operation prints more than 70,000 copies of the paper and distributes them daily throughout the war zones.

Stars and Stripes Today

As the hometown newspaper for service members, government civilians and their families in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific, Stars and Stripes offers the same type of national and international news, sports and opinion columns found in newspapers in the United States.

Stars and Stripes strives to keep readers informed about issues in their host countries, local communities and commands. In addition to the stories filed by our own reporters, daily issues can include content from the Associated Press, Knight-Ridder, Scripps-Howard, the Washington Post and other news services.

Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution ranges of any newspaper in the world. In all, we provide newspapers in over 48 countries where there are U.S. bases, posts, service members, ships, or embassies. In addition to our own print operation in Tokyo, we satellite editions to eight remote printing locations, including three in Europe (Germany, Italy and Spain). In Afghanistan, we print in Kabul and distribute newspapers daily to Kabul, Kandahar, Bagram, and Camp Salerno. We also print in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and Djibouti.

Stripes' European drivers cover more than 8,000 miles every night to deliver the paper to regional offices across Europe, as well as to airports for shipment to other countries.

Stripes' Pacific paper route delivers daily to all of Japan, from Misawa in the north to Okinawa in the south, as well as to the Republic of Korea from the DMZ to Cheju Island, and extends to Guam in the South Pacific and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

A logistical nightmare of planes, trains, automobiles, and bicycles gets the paper delivered to doorsteps each day throughout these far-flung locations.

In addition, the newspaper has followed troops in exercises, maneuvers and contingency operations to Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, East Timor, Australia, and most recently, Romania.

Stars and Stripes is, in every regard, the "hometown newspaper" for America's military.

Last updated September, 2008.

* Based on a 2002 readership survey conducted by MORI Research.

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Reprint Permissions

Stories and photos by Stars and Stripes staffers are copyrighted, and may not be reprinted or used without permission. E-mail permission@stripes.osd.mil, and let us know what you need. We regret that we cannot grant reprint permission for wire service or other syndicated material, or provide copies of photos from those services. For Associated Press reprint information, click here; to purchase copies of AP photos, click here.

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