Ernie Pyle is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist best known for his roving column, especially during World War II. He was killed covering combat on an island in the Pacific in 1944.
I make no secret that a real passion of mine is stamp collecting. My primary interests are collecting stamps and first day covers from Israel, as well as stamps that cover the topic of Boy and Girl Scouts on stamps. I also collect postal history related to the United States Coast Guard and stamps from countries that no longer exist.
There are some odds and ends collections I have as well. I love to read mysteries so I have stamps related to mysteries and fictional characters. It should be no surprise then, to learn I have stamps related to journalism.
I don’t pursue them, but when I run across them, I do pick them up. I thought I’d share a few I happen to have scanned.
None are particularly valuable, but I do enjoy them.
This set honors journalists George Polk, Ruben Salazar, John Hersey, Eric Sevareid and Martha Gelhorn. Polk worked for CBS and was found dead while covering the Greek civil war in 1948. Salazar was a Mexican-American journalist shot by by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War in 1970. Hersey was a Pulitzer Prize winner who practiced new journalism – using fiction techniques to tell a true story. Gelhorn was an acclaimed war correspondent, often regarded as one of the best of the 20th Century. Sevareid was a TV correspondent who worked for Edward Murrow.
Four pioneering female journalists are celebrated in this set of stamps. Marguerite Higgins (Hall) was an acclaimed war correspondent who covered World War II, the Korean War and the War in Vietnam. Ida Tarbell was a journalist during the progressive movement of the early 1900s, and was a leading “muckraker.” Ethel L. Payne was known as the “First Lady of the Black Press” and was the first African-American woman hired to be a commentator on a national network (CBS). Nellie Bly is a noted journalist for two reasons. First, she traveled around the world in 80 days, similar to the Jules Verne novel. More importantly, she faked insanity so she could report on conditions of mental health institutions from within.