Move by Trump officials tests independence of military paper Stars and Stripes
For over a century, the Stars and Stripes newspaper has published articles of great interest to soldiers and their families, but often somewhat reserved for the mainstream press.
In recent years, articles have addressed everything from black mold in military housing to child neglect in base day care centers to U.S. agreements with host countries that hinder the ability of military spouses to work. The newspaper’s reporting also raised questions about the Pentagon’s managerial competence.
Funded in part by the Department of Defense (DOD), the daily newspaper produced by soldiers has long operated without censorship from the Pentagon. Until now.
Why we wrote this
The independent Stars and Stripes newspaper has informed and spoken on behalf of American troops for a century. A decision by the Trump administration raises fears that the voice of the military is under threat.
Last week, the Trump administration announced plans to exercise control over the newspaper to “refocus its content away from the waking distractions that siphon off morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members,” Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell said in a social media post.
Going forward, the journal will be “tailored to our warfighters” with a focus on “warfighting, weapon systems, fitness, lethality, survivability and ALL THINGS MILITARY.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, for whom Mr. Parnell is an adviser, reposted the ad.
The move raises questions about the newspaper’s independence and how its service to a largely military audience could change. While much of the newspaper’s reporting covers sports and daily life on base, Stars and Stripes’ articles have led to lawsuits against the Defense Department and calls for better oversight of issues that most affect low-ranking troops.
The newspaper has not only informed American troops over the years. He also spoke on their behalf, advocates say. As a result, the Trump administration’s announcement raises concerns that the military may be denied the support provided by these reports.
“People who risk their lives to defend the Constitution have earned their First Amendment rights to freedoms of the press,” editor-in-chief Erik Slavin wrote in a memo to Stars and Stripes staff last week.
“No censorship”
Stars and Stripes dates back to the start of the Civil War, in 1861, when 10 journalists serving as Union soldiers came across a printing press and decided to publish a four-page issue with an editorial that spoke candidly about war losses. “We must all remember that we did not begin to destroy a country,” it reads, “but to save one.”
The newspaper soon discontinued publication, but it was revived in 1918 during World War I by General John Pershing, who envisioned a newspaper that “should express the thoughts of the new American army and of the American people from whom the army was drawn. This is your newspaper,” he wrote on the front page of the war’s first issue. “Good luck.”
During World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted Stars and Stripes to be “the equivalent of a soldier’s hometown newspaper, uncensored in its contents except for security reasons,” he wrote.
The late CBS commentator Andy Rooney, a Stars and Stripes reporter during his time in the U.S. Army, recalled in a broadcast that Eisenhower “allowed us to be a good newspaper by protecting us from any little major, colonel or brigadier general who tried to influence the content of our paper.”
When General George Patton objected to a Bill Mauldin cartoon that ridiculed him — demanding that the soldier artist be fired and sent back to the infantry — Eisenhower told him to “mind his own business,” recalled Mr. Rooney, who frequently interviewed Eisenhower while covering the war.
A battle for control
The Trump administration attempted to shut down the newspaper in 2020, during the president’s first term. But the move sparked protests, including from a bipartisan group of senators who called the release “an essential part of our nation’s freedom of the press, serving the very people charged with defending that freedom.”
“As a veteran who served overseas, I know the value that the Stars and Stripes brings to its readers,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, wrote in a 2020 letter to then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper protesting the Pentagon’s plans to withhold funding for the publication.
President Trump then turned around and spoke out, tweeting that the United States would not cut funding to Stars and Stripes “under my watch.”
The $15.5 million in federal money represents about half of the newspaper’s operating budget, with the other half coming from subscriptions and advertising. The newspaper, free to deployed military personnel, would serve nearly a million customers daily through its print, online and podcast editions.
This time around, while some Democrats, notably those on the Senate Armed Services Committee, denounced the administration’s decision as a violation of the First Amendment, Republican criticism was muted.
A new question for candidates
Mr. Parnell’s announcement comes a day after The Washington Post reported that the paper’s candidates are now being asked on the government’s employment website how they would “advance” President Trump’s policies if hired.
The director of the Federal Office of Personnel Management, which runs the site, told the Post that answering that question was optional. But US officials suggest, following Mr Parnell’s announcement, that the new Star-Spangled Banner will focus on amplifying the administration’s messages. About half of the new content on the Stars and Stripes website is expected to be “War Department-generated documents,” according to defense officials cited in The Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet.
This threatens the independence of Stars and Stripes, says Kelly McBride, president of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit organization specializing in journalism practice.
“The publication promised its audience that it would cover the military by highlighting the needs of those who serve and their families,” she says. The priority is not “to promote the administration’s policies.”
One possible obstacle to the Trump administration’s move is that Stars and Stripes has an ombudsman whose job is to report to Congress any threats to its independence, a position created in 1991 by the House Armed Services Committee. That ombudsman is currently in contact with lawmakers and others on Capitol Hill, Editor Slavin told the Monitor.
“At this point, they [administration officials] “We haven’t contacted each other directly to discuss it,” he says. When Stars and Stripes reporters contacted defense officials in recent days to ask about the administration’s decision to control the editorial staff, they were referred to Mr. Parnell’s social media post, he adds.
In the meantime, “we continue to do our job…We report on the military at a very detailed level,” covering topics that otherwise might not get covered, Mr. Slavin said.
These include articles on the high cost of off-base housing for U.S. soldiers stationed in Poland, working conditions for sailors on U.S. Navy ships, and students with military parents protesting the removal of books from DOD-run school libraries (an issue also covered by the Monitor.) The book removals were part of Secretary Hegseth’s latest efforts to return attention to diversity, which he says threatens warfighter unity.
Many Stars and Stripes articles are notable for the access journalists often have when living and working in military communities.
“No one else will write these stories,” Mr. Slavin said. “But we do it, because we know our readers care.”
