The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the Sunday Star.
20th century
thumb|The Evening Star Building at 1101 [[Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.)|Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C., now part of the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site]]
In 1907, subsequent Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman joined the Star. Berryman was most famous for his 1902 cartoon of President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, "Drawing the Line in Mississippi," which spurred the creation of the teddy bear.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post acquired and merged with its morning rival, the Washington Times-Herald, in 1954 and steadily drew readers and advertisers away from the falling Star. By the 1960s, the Post was Washington's leading newspaper.
The Star expanded to broadcasting by purchasing two more stations, WLVA-AM-TV in Lynchburg in 1965; and WCIV in Charleston in 1966.
In 1972, the Star purchased and absorbed one of Washington's few remaining competing newspapers, The Washington Daily News. For a short period of time after the merger, both "The Evening Star" and "The Washington Daily News" mastheads appeared on the front page. The paper soon was retitled "Washington Star News" and finally, "The Washington Star" by the late 1970s.
In 1973, the Star was targeted for clandestine purchase by interests close to the South African Apartheid government in its propaganda war, in what became known as the Muldergate Scandal. The Star, whose editorial policy had always been conservative, was seen as favorable to South Africa at the time. In 1974, pro-apartheid Michigan newspaper publisher John P. McGoff attempted to purchase The Washington Star for $25 million, but he and his family received death threats, and the sale did not go through. Their flagship magazine, Time, was the arch-rival to Newsweek, which The Washington Post Company had owned since 1961. Time Inc.'s president, James R. Shepley, convinced Time<nowiki/>'s board of directors that owning a daily newspaper in the national capital would bring a unique sense of prestige and political access.
An effort to draw readers with localized special "zonal" metro news sections, however, did little to help circulation. The Star lacked the resources to produce the sort of ultra-local coverage zonal editions demanded and ended up running many of the same regional stories in all of its local sections. An economic downturn resulted in monthly losses of over $1 million. Overall, the Star lost some $85 million following the acquisition before Time's board decided to give up.
Writers who worked at the Star in its last days included Michael Isikoff, Howard Kurtz, Fred Hiatt, Jane Mayer, Chris Hanson, Jeremiah O'Leary, Chuck Conconi, Crispin Sartwell, Maureen Dowd, novelist Randy Sue Coburn, Michael DeMond Davis, Lance Gay, Jules Witcover, Jack Germond, Judy Bachrach, Lyle Denniston, Fred Barnes, Gloria Borger, Kate Sylvester, and Mary McGrory. The paper's staff also included editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant from 1976 to 1981.