Defense Department says military newspaper Stars and Stripes must eliminate ‘distractions’

The Pentagon announced Thursday that it will change the Stars and Stripes, an independent military newspaper, to focus on “reporting by our warfighters” and no longer include “distractions.”

This letter, contained in a social media post from Defense Minister Pete Hegseth’s spokesman, is short on details and does not mention the media’s legacy of independence from government and military leadership. This comes a day after The Washington Post reported that job applicants at Stars and Stripes were asked what they would do to support President Donald Trump’s policies.

He watches“Do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth tells military leaders who hate the new approach

Stars and Stripes traces its lineage to the Civil War, and has published news about the military either in its newspaper or online steadily since World War II, largely to an audience of service members stationed overseas. Nearly half of its budget comes from the Pentagon and its employees are considered Department of Defense employees.

The organization’s mission statement asserts that it is “editorially independent from interference from outside its editorial chain of command” and that it is unique among news organizations associated with the Department of Defense in that it is “governed by First Amendment principles.”

Archive photo: American soldier Sgt. John Hoppock of Versailles, Kentucky, a member of NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, reads Stars and Stripes on Sunday, February 14, 1999. AP photo by Amal Emerick.

Congress established this independence in the 1990s after instances of military leadership involvement in editorial decisions. During Trump’s first term in 2020, Defense Secretary Mark Esper attempted to eliminate government funding for Stars and Stripes — effectively shutting it down — before the president overruled him.

Call to make newspaper ‘tailored for our fighters’
The Pentagon is “returning Stars and Stripes to its original mission: reporting to our warfighters,” Hegseth spokesman Sean Parnell said Thursday. He said the administration would “refocus its content away from distractions.”

“The Stars and Stripes will be designed specifically for our fighters,” Parnell wrote. “It will focus on combat, weapons systems, physical fitness, lethality, survivability, and all things military. No more Washington, D.C., gossip columns, no more Associated Press reprints.”

Parnell did not return a message requesting details. The Daily Wire, after speaking with a Pentagon spokeswoman, reported that the plan is for all Stars and Stripes content to be written by active-duty service members. Max Lederer, the magazine’s publisher, said Congress currently allows the publication’s publisher and editor-in-chief to be civilians.

The Pentagon also said that half of the outlet’s content will be created by the Department of Defense, and that it will no longer publish material from the Associated Press or Reuters news services.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks on during a meeting at the White House. Archive photo by Evelyn Hochstein/Reuters

Also Thursday, the Pentagon issued a statement in the Federal Register that it would rescind some 1990s-era guidance that governs how Stars and Stripes operates. Lederer said it’s not clear what that would mean for port operations, or whether the Defense Department has the authority to do so without authorization from Congress.

The publisher said he believes Stars and Stripes is valued by the military community precisely because of its independence as a news organization. He said no one at the Pentagon told him what he wanted from the Stars and Stripes; He first learned of her intentions by reading Parnell’s social media post.

“This will either destroy or significantly reduce the value of the organization,” Lederer said.

Jacqueline Smith, the outlet’s ombudsman, said Stars and Stripes reports on matters important to service members and their families — not just weapons systems or war strategy — and did not detect anything “woke” about its reporting.

“I think it is very important for Stars and Stripes to maintain its editorial independence, which is the foundation of its credibility,” Smith said. Smith was a longtime newspaper editor in Connecticut, her position was created by Congress three decades ago and she reports to the House Armed Services Committee.

It is the latest move by the Trump administration to impose restrictions on journalists. Most reporters from legacy media have left the Pentagon rather than agree to new rules imposed by Hegseth that they feel will give him too much control over what they report and write. The New York Times has filed a lawsuit to overturn the regulations.

Trump also sought to shut down government-funded outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that report independent news about the world in overseas countries.

Read more: Why news organizations reject the Pentagon’s new press rules

Also this week, the administration raided the home of a Washington Post journalist as part of an investigation into a contractor accused of stealing government secrets, a move that many journalists interpreted as a form of intimidation.

Applicants for the Stars and Stripes job were asked how they would advance Trump’s executive orders and policy priorities in the role, The Post reported. They were asked to identify one or two orders or initiatives that were important to them. This has raised questions about whether it is appropriate for a journalist to be subjected to what is in effect a test of loyalty.

Smith said the government’s Office of Personnel Management – not the newspaper – is responsible for the question on job applications, and he said it is consistent with what is asked of applicants for other government jobs.

But she said this is not something that should be asked of journalists. She said: “Loyalty to the truth, not to the administration.”