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Honolulu Star-Bulletin

newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ3625579 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaiʻi (after the Honolulu Advertiser).

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, along with a sister publication called MidWeek, was owned by Black Press of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and administered by a council of local Hawaii investors. The daily merged with the Advertiser on June 7, 2010, to form the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, after Black Press's attempts to find a buyer fell through.

History

Farrington Era

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin traces its roots to the February 1, 1882, founding of the Evening Bulletin by J. W. Robertson and Company. In 1912, it merged with the Hawaiian Star to become the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Wallace Rider Farrington, who later became territorial governor of Hawaii, was the editor of the newspaper from 1898 and the president and publisher from 1912 until his death. His son Joseph Rider Farrington succeeded him and served as president and publisher until his own death in 1954. From 1962 it was owned by a local group of investors led by Elizabeth P. Farrington and Chinn Ho and operated under a joint operating agreement with the Honolulu Advertiser that allowed the two papers to use the same printing facilities and sales personnel (the Hawaii Newspaper Agency) while maintaining separate fully competitive editorial staffs and providing Honolulu with two distinct editorial "voices."

Gannett Era

Gannett Pacific Corporation, a subsidiary of Gannett Corporation, purchased the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1971 under the terms of the existing joint operating agreement. The terms of the joint operating agreement did not allow one company to own both newspapers, so in 1992, Gannett sold the Honolulu Star-Bulletin to Liberty Newspapers so that it could purchase the Honolulu Advertiser.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Honolulu Star-Bulletin” is newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Honolulu, Star-Bulletin and newspaper, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010, 1882, 1912, 1898—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1912. For this dossier, Honolulu, Star-Bulletin and newspaper is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3625579. VIAF identifies the subject as 157568772. The Library of Congress control number is nr2001015403. 7 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 1882, 1912 and 1898.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Honolulu Star-Bulletin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Honolulu Star-Bulletin primary sources, Honolulu Star-Bulletin archive and Honolulu research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Honolulu Star-Bulletin”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Honolulu Star-Bulletin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.