Pasadena Star-News Moves from Offices It Occupied Since 1990 to Nearby Suite

The Pasadena Star-News newspaper downsized its physical presence in Pasadena this weekend, moving from ground floor offices in the Lieberg Building at 911 East Colorado Boulevard it occupied for 26 years to an office suite in the 2 North Lake building.

The newspaper, which was founded in 1886 and for many decades reigned supreme as Pasadena’s dominant local media, had previously been located in its own 63,863 square foot, four-story building at 525 East Colorado Boulevard. During most of the 20th century, the Star-News had piled off the presses in that imposing, stone Star-News building, which was capped by twin radio towers that broadcast original Star-News programs under the call sign KPSN. Operations there were closed in 1990.

Executive Editor Frank Pine of the Southern California News Group, the division of parent company Digital First Media which operates the Star-News, said in a Star-News article published Friday that this weekend’s move reflected the fact “the amount of space offered at 911 East Colorado was no longer necessary.”

“Much of the San Gabriel Valley News Group’s operations moved to its newer, larger facility in Monrovia,” Pine said in the article.

Newspaper management, however, sought to find a smaller space that “would continue to provide the Star-News a home in downtown Pasadena.” the article said.

“The Star-News has been in Pasadena since 1886 and always will be,” long-time staff member Larry Wilson said in a recent email. Wilson is currently the public editor for the Pasadena Star-News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and the Whittier Daily News.

According to researcher Dan McLaughlin in notes provided by the Pasadena Museum of History, the story of the Star-News began with the foundings of its predecessors. In 1886 former Iowa newspaper publisher H. J. Vail launched the Pasadena Star. In 1898, a Los Angeles Times reporter named W. S. Gilmore began the Pasadena Daily News. In 1916, the Daily News and the The Star merged to form the daily Pasadena Star-News.

“Like a lot of local newspapers, the Star-News has played an important role in Pasadena’s civic life, going all the way back to the 1880’s,” said former Star-News Editor Frank C. Girardot, who retired from the newspaper last year to partner in a public relations agency.

“The Star-News built its base on being part of the boosterism, taking a look at the good things that were happening here and keeping in touch with the growth of the city throughout the 20th century,” Girardot said.

When ownership of the newspaper changed in the late 1980’s and then again in the 1990’s, Girardot said, some of the “boosterist” qualities of the reporting and editing disappeared as the paper evolved into a different style of journalism.

The newspaper covered the gangwars of the 1980’s and “in the 90’s the Star-News had to confront the changing demography of the city, the growing crime problem,” Girardot said.

In that period, he said, the Star-News also “played a role in the rebirth of Old Pasadena.”

In recent decades, the rise of the internet and the recession of 2008 had devastating impacts on the newspaper industry.

“I think newspapers around the country didn’t foresee some of the things that would happen. I don’t think the Star-News was a loner in that,” Girardot said.

Girardot points to this weekend’s move as a part of the evolution of the Star-News in a changing world.

In the Star-News report, Public Editor Larry Wilson looked back and also ahead.

“(The Lieberg Building) was a really fun, collaborative space where I spent 12 years of long nights as editor,” Wilson is quoted by reporter Christopher Yee as saying. “We did a whole lot of great journalism there, as I’m sure we will in 2 North Lake.”
[For the full Star-News story, click here.]