Express & Star

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The Express & Star is a right leaning evening newspaper based in Wolverhampton, England, publishing 11 different editions covering the Black Country, Birmingham and areas of the wider West Midlands from Tamworth to Kidderminster.

With a daily circulation of over 150,000, the Express & Star is the biggest-selling regional evening newspaper in Britain.^[1]

The Express & Star is also one of the few independent newspapers now operating in the UK having been under the continuous ownership of the Graham family almost since its inception.

Its associated website expressandstar.com was launched in 1997, initially as westmidlands.com, under the editorship of Aidan Goldstraw. It changed its title to expressandstar.com in 2002.

[edit] History

The origins of the Express & Star lie in the Evening Star - a liberal newspaper founded in Wolverhampton in 1880 as a rival to the existing conservative Evening Express, itself founded in 1874. In 1882 the Star was bought by wealthy Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, encouraged by his friend and fellow Dunfermline-born liberal (and by then prominent Wolverhampton councillor) Thomas Graham.

The combination of Carnegie's finance and Graham's organisational ability saw the paper flourish and within two years the Star had taken over the Express under the editorship of another Dunfermline native, editor Andrew Meikle. The combined newspaper adopted its current name in 1889.

Carnegie severed his links with the paper and its parent company the Midland News Association in 1902, leaving Graham in full control until his death in 1909. The following decades saw a steady expansion under Graham's descendents, with the paper's influence spreading out from its native Wolverhampton to cover the entire Black Country.