Pentagon says it will revamp Stars and Stripes newspaper and jettison ‘woke distractions’
The Defense Department announced Thursday that it will overhaul Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-funded independent newspaper that covers the U.S. military, to “refocus its content.”
Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on X that the publication would return “to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters.”
“We’re bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century,” Parnell said. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from the waking distractions that siphon off morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”
“No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints,” he added.
The move comes after The Washington Post reported that the military newspaper’s nominees were recently asked: “How would you advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?”
Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin told NBC News in an email Thursday evening that the paper “does not ask about political support in job interviews.”
He said the policy priorities question “is asked of all federal job applicants and was added to the USA Jobs platform by the Office of Personnel Management.” Slavin said Stars and Stripes was not informed that the question had been added to its applications.
“People who swear to defend the Constitution have earned the right to enjoy its benefits, including access to a free and independent press,” he added. “The cost of housing for soldiers living in Poland, morale in Germany, conditions on ships and even high school sports at military base schools – Stars and Stripes delivers coverage on a scale that no other news organization produces on a daily basis.”
With a history dating back to 1861, Stars and Stripes is editorially independent and “mandated by Congress to be governed by the principles of the First Amendment,” according to the newspaper.
