{{Short description|American daily newspaper}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}} {{Infobox newspaper | name = The Anniston Star | image = 225px|border | logo = The Anniston Star (2018-10-26).svg | caption = The July 27, 2005 front page of<br />''The Anniston Star'' | type = Daily newspaper | format = Broadsheet | founded = 1883 | ceased_publication = | price = USD 1.00 Wednesday, 2.00 Weekend Edition | owners = Consolidated Publishing Co. | publisher = Blucher Ehringhaus III, John Fry | editor = Timothy Cash | circulation = | headquarters = 1118 Noble Street<br />Anniston, Alabama 36201<br>{{USA}} | ISSN = | website = [http://www.annistonstar.com annistonstar.com] }}

'''''The Anniston Star''''' is the hyper-local, daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. However, by 2020 it was approximately half of this.<ref name="Short1" /> The newspaper is locally owned by Consolidated Publishing Company, which is controlled by the Ayers family of Anniston. The paper operates as a "digital-first" publication, while publishing two print editions each week.<ref name="Short1" />

==History== ===Founding and early years (1883-1911)=== In 1883, the Woodstock Iron Company founded a newspaper for the newly opened company town of Anniston, Alabama, naming it the ''Daily Hot Blast'' after the sound of the iron ore furnaces.<ref name="Wallace">{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=Aurora |title=Newspapers and the making of modern America : a history |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=0313323208 |pages=44-50 |url=https://archive.org/details/newspapersmaking0000wall_d1n3/page/44/mode/2up?q=%22The+Anniston+Star%22 |access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>{{rp|pp=44-45}} Dr. Thomas W. Ayers, a local physician, purchased the ''Hot Blast'' in the 1890s. In 1910, his son Harry M. Ayers and businessman Thomas E. Kilby purchased it for $7,000 ({{inflation|US|7000|1910|fmt=eq}}). Ayers and Kilby then bought out the ''Evening Star'', consolidating the two papers under the eventual name ''The Anniston Star''.<ref name="Roberts">{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Gene |last2=Kunkel |first2=Thomas |last3=Layton |first3=Charles |title=Leaving readers behind : the age of corporate newspapering |date=2001 |publisher=University of Arkansas Press |isbn=1557287090 |pages=366-367 |url=https://archive.org/details/leavingreadersbe00robe/page/n385/mode/2up?q=%22The+Anniston+Star%22 |access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref> Kilby sold his stake to Ayers before running for lieutenant governor, with Ayers continuing to support his campaign editorially.<ref name="Wallace"/>{{rp|p=46}}

===Harry M. Ayers era (1911-1960s)=== Under Harry Ayers, the paper took an openly boosterist editorial approach, favoring optimistic coverage of local affairs and civic achievement. Wallace describes its editorial stance as presenting Anniston favorably to attract outside investment.<ref name="Wallace"/>{{rp|p=48}} Ayers served twice as president of the Anniston Chamber of Commerce, and held active roles in the Rotary Club, the American Legion, the Alabama Press Association, and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.<ref name="Wallace"/>

The paper endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt for president in 1932 and continued to back him through his four terms, though Ayers at times opposed specific New Deal policies while supporting Roosevelt personally.<ref name="Wallace"/> In 1937 the paper abandoned its support for Prohibition, with Ayers arguing that it had encouraged crime.<ref name="Wallace"/>

By 1928, the ''Star'' reached six thousand in a city of thirty thousand residents.<ref name="Wallace"/>

===H. Brandt Ayers era (1965-2018)=== H. Brandt Ayers took over the paper from his father in 1965. Under the younger Ayers' watch, the ''Star'' reversed its initial skepticism toward the Civil Rights Movement and strongly supported school integration, one of the few Southern papers to do so. George Wallace derisively nicknamed the paper ''The Red Star'' for its support of integration. It has consistently remained one of the more liberal newspapers in a state that has grown increasingly friendly to Republicans.

The ''Star'' is Consolidated's flagship paper. Other newspapers printed by the company include ''The Daily Home'', and the weeklies ''The Cleburne News'', the ''St. Clair Times'', and the ''News Journal''.

===21st century=== During the COVID-19 pandemic, Anthony Cook, head of the ''Star'''s publishing company, announced that the editorial page was to be discontinued. Cook also voluntarily furloughed himself rather than laying off staff.<ref name="Short1">{{cite web |last1=Short |first1=Aaron |title=A newspaper editor furloughed himself rather than lay off his reporters |url=https://www.insider.com/newspaper-editor-furloughed-himself-rather-than-lay-off-his-reporters-2020-4 |website=insider.com |publisher=Insider Inc. |access-date=5 December 2020}}</ref>

===H. Brandt Ayers controversy=== On January 2, 2018, during the Me Too movement, former publisher H. Brandt Ayers admitted that he assaulted Wendy Sigal in her Anniston home in the 1970s. Wendy Sigal was a reporter who worked at the newspaper in 1973 and 1974. He admitted he spanked her, but it was with the advice of a doctor. Veronica Pike Kennedy said that Ayers spanked her 18 times when she was 20 years old in the Star's newsroom with a metal ruler in 1975 in the presence of a young male employee and Ayers seemed to confirm it.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Lockette|first1=Tim|title=Star's former publisher acknowledges assault on reporter|url=https://www.annistonstar.com/free/star-s-former-publisher-acknowledges-assault-on-reporter/article_e183add4-f011-11e7-b747-ef24d969db70.html|access-date=4 January 2018|publisher=The Anniston star|date=2 January 2018}}</ref>

In March 2019 H. Brandt Ayers resigned as head of Consolidated Publishing after further alleged incidents of misconduct on his part emerged, including further alleged incidents of physical abuse, particularly spanking of female staff. He was replaced by his wife, Josephine Ayers.<ref name="Thornton1">{{cite web |last1=Thornton |first1=William |title=H. Brandt Ayers, Anniston Star's former publisher, resigns following allegations |url=https://www.al.com/news/anniston-gadsden/2018/01/h_brandt_ayers_anniston_stars.html |website=AL.com |publisher=Advance Local Media LLC |access-date=5 December 2020 |date=6 March 2019}}</ref> H. Brandt Ayers died in May 2020.<ref name="Moseley1">{{cite news |last1=Moseley |first1=Brandon |title=NEWSLongtime Anniston Star publisher H. Brandt "Brandy" Ayers has died |url=https://www.alreporter.com/2020/05/05/longtime-anniston-star-publisher-h-brandt-brandy-ayers-has-died/ |access-date=5 December 2020 |work=Alabama Political Reporter |date=5 May 2020}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{official website |1=http://www.annistonstar.com}} * {{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Alabama |publisher= Alabama Humanities Foundation |title= The Anniston Star |url= http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2061 }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anniston Star, The}} Category:1883 establishments in Alabama Category:Newspapers established in 1883 Category:2018 controversies in the United States Category:Newspapers published in Alabama Category:Anniston, Alabama Category:Daily newspapers published in the United States