John Robert Starr wrote sports for the
Memphis Commercial Appeal and founded the
Pine Bluff Star-Reporter at
Pine Bluff, Arkansas before being hired by the
Associated Press in 1957. Starr worked for the AP for nineteen years, which included ten years as the
Little Rock bureau chief. Starr served as bureau chief during the controversial period under Governor
Orval Faubus and was responsible for reporting the social changes sweeping the state during the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the critical
Little Rock Crisis of 1957–58. Starr left the AP in 1976 and taught journalism for two years. John Robert Starr became managing editor of the
Arkansas Democrat in 1978. He was hired by publisher
Walter E. Hussman Jr., who intended to take on the rival
Arkansas Gazette, which was the state's premier newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper west of the
Mississippi River. Soon after his arrival at the
Democrat, he posed for the
Arkansas Times May 1979 magazine cover with a helmet on his head and with a knife clenched between his teeth squatting atop a
Gazette newspaper rack. Hussman seriously considered firing Starr for this unapproved action but in the end, only reprimanded him. Nevertheless, this photo set the tone for the bitter newspaper war that followed and foreshadowed that the battle was "to the death". Starr was the field general for the
Democrat during the 13-year-long newspaper war and wrote scathing commentaries about the
Gazette on the editorial pages of the
Democrat. The
Democrat adopted a free classified ad program and switched from an afternoon to a morning paper in order to compete directly with the
Gazette. The
Gazette underwent a long decline and was passed through several owners before being purchased by Hussman in 1991 and folded into the
Democrat operation to form the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Starr played a major role in the passage of the Arkansas
Freedom of Information Act which was praised as a model
sunshine law at the time of its passage. Starr stepped down as managing editor in 1992. He continued to write a daily column through the late 1990s when he reduced his output to three days a week. During this time, Starr was very critical of
Bill Clinton in his columns. Starr had supported Clinton during his early years as Governor of Arkansas but became very critical after Starr claimed that Clinton had lied to him about a story. During Clinton's election bids, Starr often made appearances on national political programs to comment about his experiences covering Clinton during his Arkansas years. Starr's last columns focused on calling for the resignation of
Arkansas Razorbacks basketball coach
Nolan Richardson. Later when Starr was in the hospital after heart surgery, Richardson sent him flowers. This completely changed the way Starr wrote about Richardson from then on. == Personal life ==