By Dean Graber
U.S. soldiers had been in Haiti 11 days before they got the first copies of Stars and Stripes, the newspaper that operates independently within the military structure and follows troops to war fronts. Editor & Publisher and The New York Times both report on the logistics of getting Stars and Stripes into the hands of military women and men who are deployed overseas.
Stars and Stripes prints 800-1,000 copies at Fort Lauderdale’s Sun-Sentinel and flies them to Haiti out of Homestead Joint Air Reserve Base. The newspaper also publishes European and Asian editions, and a Middle East edition, which E&P says circulates about 70,000 copies to troops.
"Stars and Stripes has not only a proud tradition but a mandate to be sure that we provide a newspaper wherever soldiers are," an editor told E&P. The newspaper's national correspondent, Megan McCloskey, reached Haiti four days after the quake and has been filing news stories, blog postings, and tweets.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
