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The Pentagon said Thursday that it is changing the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes so it concentrates on \u201creporting for our warfighters\u201d and no longer includes \u201cwoke distractions.\u201d<\/p>\n
That message, in a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spokesman, is short on specifics and does not mention the news outlet’s legacy of independence from government and military leadership. It comes a day after The Washington Post reported that applicants for jobs at Stars and Stripes were being asked what they would do to support President Donald Trump’s policies.<\/p>\n
Stars and Stripes traces its lineage to the Civil War and has reported news about the military either in its newspaper or online since World War II, largely to an audience of service members stationed overseas. Roughly half of its budget comes from the Pentagon and its staff members are considered Defense Department employees.<\/p>\n
The outlet’s mission statement emphasizes that it is \u201ceditorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command\u201d and that it is unique among news organizations tied to the Defense Department in being \u201cgoverned by the principles of the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Congress established that independence in the 1990s after instances of military leadership getting involved in editorial decisions. During Trump’s first term in 2020, Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried to eliminate<\/a> government funding for Stars and Stripes \u2014 to effectively shut it down \u2014 before he was overruled by the president.<\/p>\n Hegseth’s spokesman, Sean Parnell, said on X Thursday that the Pentagon \u201cis returning Stars and Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters.\u201d He said the department will \u201crefocus its content away from woke distractions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStars and Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters,\u201d Parnell wrote. \u201cIt will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the department is committed to ensuring the outlet’s legacy of reporting news that’s important to service members.<\/p>\n Stars and Stripes’ publisher, Max Lederer, did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment. But Jacqueline Smith, the outlet’s ombudsman, called Parnell’s statement a surprise. She said Stars and Stripes reports on matters important to service members and their families \u2014 not just weapons systems or war strategy \u2014 and she’s detected nothing \u201cwoke\u201d about its reporting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it’s very important that Stars and Stripes maintains its editorial independence, which is the basis of its credibility,\u201d Smith said. A longtime newspaper editor in Connecticut, Smith serves in a role created by Congress three decades ago to ensure that independence, and she reports to the House Armed Services Committee.<\/p>\n It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to impose restrictions on journalists. Most reporters from legacy news outlets have left the Pentagon<\/a> rather than to agree to new rules imposed by Hegseth that they feel would give him too much control over what they report and write. The New York Times has sued to overturn<\/a> the regulations.<\/p>\n Trump has also sought to shut down government-funded outlets like Voice of America<\/a> and Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty<\/a> that report independent news about the world in countries overseas.<\/p>\n Also this week, the administration raided the home<\/a> of a Washington Post journalist as part of an investigation into a contractor accused of stealing government secrets, a move many journalists interpreted as a form of intimidation.<\/p>\n The Post reported that applicants to Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would advance Trump’s executive orders and policy priorities in the role. They were asked to identify one or two orders or initiatives that were significant to them. That raised questions about whether it was appropriate for a journalist to be given what is, in effect, a loyalty test.<\/p>\n Smith said it was the government’s Office of Personnel Management \u2014 not the newspaper \u2014 that was responsible for the question on job applications and said it was consistent with what was being asked of applicants for other government jobs.<\/p>\n But she said it was not something that should be asked of journalists. \u201cThe loyalty is to the truth, not the administration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http:\/\/x.com\/dbauder<\/a> and https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/dbauder.bsky.social<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n