Two newsrooms in Washington, D.C. are clashing over the 'Star' name. NOTUS plans a major rebrand and expansion. The Washington Star has relaunched and filed a trademark lawsuit. The outcome could reshape local media.
Media professionals in Washington, D.C. are watching a high-stakes clash that could reshape the city’s news landscape. After The Washington Post cut more than 300 journalists in February, several outlets announced plans to expand coverage. Among them, NOTUS stood out by revealing it would double its staff, starting with hires from the Post, and rebrand as “The Star” with a relaunch set for June.
However, NOTUS now faces a direct challenge from The Washington Star, a conservative-leaning newspaper that once rivaled the Post before shutting down in 1981. Under the leadership of Dovid Efune, who also revived The New York Sun, The Washington Star has resumed publishing on Substack and aims to launch a website within two months and a weekend print edition by year’s end. Efune told The New York Times he plans to hire up to 50 full-time journalists and contributors, accelerating his timeline in response to NOTUS’s rebrand.
The legal battle escalated Thursday when The Washington Star Company filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against NOTUS in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The suit claims the NOTUS rebrand, combined with publisher Robert Allbritton’s family ties—his father once owned The Washington Star—could confuse readers and violate the Star’s trademark. Allbritton previously told Columbia Journalism Review that reviving the Star name would be too backward looking, but the new NOTUS name was described as an homage to the historic paper.
A NOTUS spokesperson said the company would vigorously defend itself against the lawsuit, according to The New York Times. The dispute has drawn attention across the industry, with City Cast DC noting that it will not be rebranding as City Star DC. For those tracking legal battles in the media sector, a similar focus on publisher leverage and regulatory shifts was explored in a recent analysis of UK news publishers and Google Search rules, available here.
