DAILY 'STARS AND STRIPES' NEWSPAPER WASN'T SOLD

By: Ellen Liburt Defense Department Still Publishes Daily Overseas Edition



Editor's note: Last week, E&P Online reported that The Stars and
Stripes newspaper had been bought by a Web company. We were right,
but we missed an important element of the story. The paper purchased
isn't the U.S. Defense Department daily of the same name. We regret the
confusion.



When an Internet company recently bought a newspaper called The
Stars and Stripes, many people (including the editors of this Web
site) were confused.



Pittsburgh-based iServed.com - which bills itself as 'the Internet's
leading provider of military-focused news coverage' - bought the
stateside publication, which is published every two weeks and claims a
circulation of 10,000, from the National Tribune Corp. on April 21. The
publication has focused editorial content primarily toward veterans.
The company changed the flag on the iServed.com home page to read 'The
Stars and Stripes,' and created a new address for the site at
http://www.stripes.com.



Problem is, even decorated veterans like Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.)
had it confused with the government-subsidized, 55,000-circulation
paper that is published by the Defense Department for U.S. service
members in Europe and the Pacific.



The biweekly veterans' newspaper bought by iServed.com obtained the
U.S. trademark for the words 'Stars and Stripes' after World War I,
while the military daily paper has the rights for 14 countries abroad.



'That's where the confusion arises,' said Tom Kelsch, the Washington,
D.C.-based publisher of the international daily paper. 'Our name is
very valuable to them, but they're not connected with our product in
any way,' he added.



In fact, readers of The Stars and Stripes history presented on
stripes.com may well come away with the impression that the veterans'
paper is the same news organization renowned for its coverage of U.S.
military forces overseas. 'That wasn't their reporters [covering U.S.
forces],' said Clifford H. Bernath, director of the American Forces
Information Service, which oversees the daily Stars and Stripes.
'It was our reporters facing bullets and danger.'



Bernath wants iServed.com to issue a public statement clarifying which
newspaper has been through war and peace with the troops. He indicated
that he hopes iServed.com will do so, but that if it doesn't, the
government would consider legal action.



'We are not looking to get into a legal battle with the Department of
Defense,' Chris Hale, vice president of development for iServed.com,
told the daily Stars and Stripes. He said his company intends to
discuss the matter with Bernath and other officials, and that '[i]f
there was any ambiguity, it was not by intent.'