The Anniston Star

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The July 27, 2005 front page of The Anniston Star
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	Consolidated Publishing Co.
Publisher	H. Brandt Ayers
Editor	Bob Davis
Founded	1900 (as The Anniston Republic)
Price	USD .50 daily, 1.00 Sunday
Headquarters	4305 McClellan Blvd. Anniston, AL 36202 United States

Website: www.annistonstar.com

The Anniston Star is the daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. The newspaper is locally-owned by Consolidated Publishing Company, which is controlled by the descendants of Col. Harry M. Ayers, one of the newspaper's early owners. The Star is Consolidated's flagship paper. Other newspapers printed by the company include The (Talladega) Daily Home, and the weeklies The Cleburne News, The Jacksonville News, and the Piedmont Journal. The current publisher, H. Brandt Ayers, is the son of Col. Ayers. During the civil rights movement, The Star gained a reputation as one of the few liberal-minded Southern newspapers. It was nicknamed "The Red Star" by George Wallace, due to its support of school integration-- one of the few Southern newspapers to take such a stance.

It was twice named "one of the best" by the Time magazine staff, and was one of only two under 100,000 circulation which made Columbia Journalism Review's list of the nation's top 30 papers. Rick Bragg, author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling All Over but the Shoutin' and a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsman, began his career at the Anniston Star and discusses the newspaper in his book. In August, 2006, it became the nation's only "Teaching Newspaper," offering a Masters degree taught in The Star's newsroom in partnership with the University of Alabama and the Knight Foundation.