Eugene Smith Pulliam was the publisher of the Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis News from 1975 until his death. He was also a supporter of First Amendment rights, an advocate of press freedom, and opposed McCarthyism. The Kansas native, DePauw University graduate, and World War II veteran of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Naval Reserve pursued a six-decade-long career in journalism that included work for the United Press new agency, as news director of WIRE-AM in Indianapolis, and in various editorial and publishing positions at the Star and News before he succeeded his father, Eugene C. Pulliam, as publisher of the two newspapers. During Eugene S. Pulliam's tenure as publisher of the Star, it received two Pulitzer Prizes; one in 1975 for a series of articles on police corruption in Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, and another in 1991 for investigation of medical malpractice in Indiana. Pulliam also became executive vice president of Central Newspapers, Inc., the media holding company his father founded in 1934. Dan Quayle, Eugene C. Pulliam's grandson and Eugene S. Pulliam's half nephew, served as the 44th Vice President of the United States from 1989 to 1993.

The Indianapolis Star is a morning daily newspaper that began publishing on June 6, 1903, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. It has been the only major daily paper in the city since 1999, when the Indianapolis News ceased publication. It won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2021 and the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting twice, in 1975 and 1991. It is currently owned by Gannett.