Salazar, 4 others on U.S. postage

Former Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist Ruben Salazar was one five distinguished journalists commemorated on a series of postage stamps issued Tuesday by the Postal Service.

The series, intended to recognize journalists who broke barriers or showed great courage, features Martha Gellhorn, John Hersey, George Polk, Eric Sevareid and Salazar.

First-day-issue dedication ceremonies for the 42-cent stamps were held at the National Press Club in Washington as part of the Press Club’s 100th anniversary, and at the Los Angeles Times.

Postmaser General John E. Potter said Salazar’s work and legacy helped the nation embrace the notion of diversity. “It has been people like Mr. Salazar who brought issues of equitable treatment to light and helped make America the melting pot it is today.”

Gellhorn covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War in a career that broke new ground for women.

Hersey’s best-known work, “Hiroshima,” examined the effect of the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. on the Japanese city.

Sevareid reported on the German approach to Paris during World War II, and later survived after parachuting from a disabled plane into a jungle.

Polk was a CBS correspondent who filed radio dispatches about strife-ridden Greece after World War II. He was investigating corruption involving U.S. aid when he disappeared.

Times columnist and KMEX-TV news director Salazar was killed Aug. 29, 1970, when he was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired by a sheriff’s deputy during a Vietnam War protest in East Los Angeles.