The Hoy Boys

Twin photojournalists lead us back to a pre-digital era,
when Americans read newspapers and facts mattered.

Working class twin brothers Tom and Frank Hoy hustled up copyboy jobs in 1953 and eventually became White House news photographers for two major DC papers. Frank shot pictures for The Washington Post, and Tom did the same for The Evening Star. They were affectionately known as “the Hoy boys.” They were never famous, but their story is the story of American journalism when it mattered most.

In the 1950s and 60s physical newspapers were the primary source of news and information, and Tom and Frank stumbled into a golden era for photojournalism. They both became White House correspondents and they were able to shoot pictures in an era before the “hyper-credentialed” came to dominate the news media. As staff photographers for major newspapers, their work was seen by hundreds of thousands of people daily.

The Hoy Boys introduces audiences to the once great newspaper The Evening Star (1862 – 1981.) It was the leading paper in DC in the 1950s and one of the top in the country. The Evening Star is brought to life by former staffers Carl Bernstein, Warren Hoge, Rupert Welch, Jack Sherwood, Arnold Taylor and others. Family members and media thinkers round out the ensemble. Tom and Frank’s iconic photographs graced the pages of competing Washington DC newspapers in the 1950’s and 60’s and as we rediscover their iconic images, The Hoy Boys provides a lens through which we view the complexities of the past and the chaos of today’s media landscape.