Sheffield Star
| 200px | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner(s) | Johnston Press |
| Publisher | Sheffield Newspapers Ltd |
| Editor | James Mitchinson |
| Founded | 1887 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Sheffield |
| Sister newspapers | Doncaster Star, Sheffield Telegraph |
| Website | www.thestar.co.uk |
The Star, often known as the Sheffield Star, is a daily newspaper published in Sheffield, England, from Monday to Saturday each week. Originally a broadsheet, the newspaper became a tabloid in 1989. The Star, the weekly Sheffield Telegraph and the Green 'Un are published by Sheffield Newspapers Ltd (owned by Johnston Press), based at York Street in Sheffield City Centre.
The Star is marketed in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire and reaches its readers through its main edition and district edition for Doncaster. The Rotherham and Barnsley district editions closed in 2008. The total average issue readership for The Star is 105,498.[1]
The newspaper which subsequently became The Star began as the Sheffield Evening Telegraph,[2] the first edition of which was published on 7 June 1887. It soon took over its only local rival, the Sheffield Evening Star, and from June 1888 to December 1897 it was known as the Evening Telegraph and Star and Sheffield Daily Times, then from 1898 to October 1937 as the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star. In 1931, it took over the Sheffield Mail, which had been its main rival since 1920. From 1937 to November 1938, the newspaper became the Telegraph & Star, and finally, from 14 November 1938 as The Star.
In April 1989, the newspaper sparked controversy with its reporting on the Hillsborough disaster which occurred in the city and in which 96 Liverpool F.C. fans were fatally injured at an FA Cup semi-final tie. It claimed that the key factor of the tragedy was the drunkenness of Liverpool fans. These claims were met with outrage by Liverpool fans, particularly when it was established that police loss of crowd control and the presence of perimeter fencing between the stands and the pitch were the key factors in the tragedy, although the newspaper which caused the most offence for its reporting was The Sun.[3]
Johnston Press began printing The Star at their new £60 million printing plant in Dinnington, near Rotherham, in September 2006. The plant includes the first 'triple width' newspaper press in the UK. The plant also prints not only several other Johnston Press titles, including the Sheffield Telegraph, Scarborough Evening News, Wakefield Express, Derbyshire Times, and Chesterfield Advertiser, but also a number of external publications, including The Sun and News of the World for News International.[4]
In March 2011, The Star sports columnist and Features Editor Martin Smith received a top national award at the British Sports Journalism Awards, a long-standing event with a tradition of over 30 years. He was named Regional Sports Writer of the Year, for the third time in eight years, by the Sports Journalists' Association.[5]
The current editor of The Star is James Mitchinson. Jeremy Clifford and John Furbisher held the position previously after Alan Powell retired in 2010.
References
Bibliography
- Bob Horton, Living in Sheffield: 1000 years of change
