Pentagon tightens controls over Stars and Stripes after calling it “woke”

The Protection Division has begun to exert larger management over Stars and Stripes, weeks after a prime spokesman accused the impartial army newspaper of specializing in “woke distractions.”

The Pentagon introduced what it calls “modernization” adjustments this week, in a memo dated March 9 and efficient instantly, in response to a replica seen by NPR and first reported by Stars and Stripes on Friday. It is the newest effort by the Pentagon and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth to use extraordinary limits on journalists masking the company.

The memo says that Stars and Stripes will proceed to “function with editorial independence.” Nevertheless, it additionally says that the newspaper should instantly start implementing the Protection Division’s new interim insurance policies and cease publishing a number of kinds of content material.

It additionally declares that the publication’s content material “should be in step with good order and self-discipline,” which is a phrase utilized in army justice.

Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin informed NPR on Saturday that this phrase makes him significantly involved for his employees reporters who’re members of the U.S. army, and who thus could be court-martialed for violations of its uniform code of army justice.

“In the event that they have been to finish a narrative that the Protection Division didn’t like, and didn’t discover ‘in step with good order and self-discipline,’ would they be in authorized jeopardy?” Slavin stated. “We do not know the reply to that.”

Pentagon says newspaper will likely be ‘by the warfighter and for the warfighter’

This new memo comes weeks after the Pentagon publicly criticized Stars and Stripes and promised an overhaul of the publication.

“We’ll modernize its operations, refocus its content material away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a brand new technology of service members,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote in a Jan. 15 submit on X.

In an emailed assertion on Saturday, Parnell informed NPR that the Protection Division “is returning [Stars and Stripes] to its authentic mission: an impartial information supply for service members stationed abroad that’s by the warfighter and for the warfighter.” Parnell added that the adjustments imply the newspaper “will evolve” so as “to fulfill business traits and adjustments in how new generations of service members devour media.”

Slavin informed NPR that the Protection Division had not responded to his efforts to speak with them since that submit, and the Pentagon didn’t ship his newspaper the brand new memo instantly — it solely issued a press release for his newspaper’s article about it.. (The memo stated a replica can be despatched to Stars and Stripes Writer Max Lederer; Slavin informed NPR Lederer didn’t obtain a replica.)

Slavin stated he solely discovered concerning the memo on Thursday, three days after it was issued, after one in all his staffers discovered it on a Protection Division web site.

Stars and Stripes has served the U.S. army independently for many years

The newspaper’s employees will likely be assembly Monday morning to determine the way to adjust to the memo. Slavin stated that he felt “deep concern for our employees and our readership” concerning the memo, because it “restricts what information sources could be printed and directs that Stars and Stripes ought to publish official public relations tales.”

Stars and Stripes first lined the U.S. army in the course of the Civil Battle, and has been printed repeatedly since World Battle II. It’s owned by the Protection Division however is basically staffed by civilian reporters and editors. By Congressional mandate, it has operated independently because the Nineteen Nineties.

However beneath the Trump administration, the Pentagon has appeared to attempt to finish that Congressional mandate. In January, the Protection Division withdrew a federal regulation that underpinned the mandate, in response to Stars and Stripes. The brand new memo printed this week says that the newspaper’s ombudsman ought to now ship info meant for Congress to the Division of Protection first, as an alternative of on to federal legislators.

Trump and Hegseth have sought to exert larger management over a number of media entities

Stars and Stripes has traditionally loved bipartisan assist — together with from President Trump. In 2020, throughout his first administration, the Pentagon threatened to close it down, earlier than Trump intervened. In a social-media submit on the time, he known as the newspaper “an exquisite supply of data to our Nice Navy!”

However nowadays, Trump and his allies have sought to exert far larger direct management over a number of media entities — and Hegseth’s Protection Division has been significantly aggressive on this entrance.

In September, Hegseth unveiled a coverage that required media retailers to pledge to not collect info until protection officers had formally approved its launch. Most established information organizations, together with NPR, selected to surrender their press passes as an alternative of agreeing to the coverage.

Press freedom advocacy organizations decried this newest Pentagon memo after Stars and Stripes reported on it this week.

“Service members and army households depend on Stars and Stripes for impartial reporting, not for materials formed or dictated by the very officers the paper is meant to carry accountable,” Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director at PEN America, stated in a press release.

The Pentagon will curtail protection of conflict zones — and March Insanity

The Protection Division’s new memo will doubtless additionally stifle a lot of Stars and Stripes‘ each day newsgathering operations — together with its skill to cowl the brand new conflict in Iran or different fight zones the place its army readers could also be deployed.

That is as a result of the memo prohibits Stars and Stripes from publishing most tales from wire providers, just like the Related Press or Reuters. Many information organizations publish tales from such wire providers to tell readers about necessary information they don’t have the sources to cowl themselves. Within the case of Stars and Stripes, meaning its readers won’t see tales or photographs from Iran or different conflict zones the place it doesn’t at present have journalists working.

Stars and Stripes additionally will be unable to make the most of wire providers to cowl lighter however well-liked information, just like the upcoming March Insanity school basketball event and different main sporting occasions. The memo even explicitly bans Stars and Stripes from publishing comedian strips.

“We do use a whole lot of these different providers to spherical out our protection, and it seems that we are going to be unable to try this,” Slavin says. “We might want to discover different sources of data.”