Postal Service honors 5 distinguished journalists on new stamps

Postage prices — U.S. & International — to go up May 12

Images of ‘American Journalists’ Stamps DENVER, CO —The U.S. Postal Service celebrates the great contributions of journalism to our nation with the issuance of five new “American Journalists” commemorative stamps on April 22.

The 42-cent stamps feature:

Ruben Salazar, the first Mexican-American journalist to have a major voice in mainstream media, whose work chronicled the evolution of Mexican-American politics.
Martha Gellhorn, a ground-breaking war correspondent who covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War.
John Hersey, whose most famous work documented the story of Hiroshima; the book was named the top work of journalism of the 20th century by New York University.
George Polk, a CBS radio correspondent who filed hard-hitting reports on the civil strife in Greece in the aftermath of World War II.
Eric Sevareid, broadcast journalist, commentator and writer, whose work influenced a generation of reporters.

The American Journalists Stamps were dedicated in a national stamp unveiling ceremony on April 22 at the National Press Club in Washington DC, in conjunction with the Centennial Celebration of the National Press Club.

The stamps feature a photo of each journalist and a few lines of types that are meant to suggest newspaper print headlines of articles by or about each reporter. Art director Howard Paine worked with designer Fred Otnes of West Redding, CT, to create the stamp art. The abstract backgrounds were meant to imply the “wordliness” of the subjects, without referring to specific events.

The Postal Service previously has issued stamps honoring other journalists, including Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, Walter Lippman, Henry Luce, Nellie Bly, Ida May Tarbell, Ethel L. Payne, Marguerite Higgins and publishers Adolph S. Ochs, Henry Luce and Joseph Pulitzer.

The stamps are printed in a sheet of 20 and will be available at all Post Offices nationwide on April 22. Using your credit card, customers can also order the American Journalist Stamps, and other stamps and stamp art at usps.com or by calling 1-800-STAMP-24.

Attention TV stations: USPS offers broadcast quality b-roll of the national American Journalist Stamps/Press Club event and other postal news via PATHFIRE and standard broadcasting at the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/news. American Journalists stamp b-roll will be available approximately after 1:00 PM (Mountain) time on April 22.

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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that visits every address in the nation — 146 million homes and businesses. It has 37,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses, not tax dollars. The Postal Service has annual revenues of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.