| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | George W. Ball Herman Obermayer Sun Gazette Papers |
| Founded | 1930s |
| Ceased publication | 1998 |
The Northern Virginia Sun was a newspaper published in Arlington, Virginia, from the 1930s until 1998. For much of its life, it was a six-day-a-week broadsheet, published Monday through Saturday, that emphasized local news.[1]
Its legacy can be seen in the Arlington public library, which has maintained a collection of the Sun's "Then and Now" series about Arlington landmarks and history.[2] These began appearing in the Sun in the 1950s and continued, on and off, through the 1980s.
The Sun's corporate descendant, Sun Gazette Newspapers, was sold to American Community Newspapers in 2005.[1]
The Sun drew national attention in the late 1970s when owner Herman J. Obermayer said the Sun would print the name of accusers in rape cases that came to trial, out of a sense of "fairness" between the two sides.[3] Time magazine reported that Obermayer's policy was "hotly denounced by local feminists, police, prosecutors, hospital officials and nearly all the Sun readers who have written or telephoned Obermayer to comment." Time quoted Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post, as saying, "It's wrong. It's misguided. We wouldn't do it."[3]