An Army sergeant with the 153rd Military Police Company reads an edition of Stars and Stripes while in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Oct. 18, 2007. (Brendan Mackie/U.S. Army)
The Pentagon said on social media Thursday it would take over editorial content decision-making for Stars and Stripes in a statement from the Defense Department’s top spokesman.
“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters. We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top public affairs official and a close adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wrote in a statement posted to X. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”
The statement appears to challenge the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, which while a part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity has long retained independence from editorial oversight from the Pentagon under a congressional mandate that it be governed by First Amendment principles.
The move was met with pushback from several Democratic senators, who accused the Pentagon of tampering with the newspaper’s reporting.
Stars and Stripes, which is dedicated to serving U.S. government personnel overseas, seeks to emulate the best practices of commercial news organizations in the United States. It is governed by Department of Defense Directive 5122.11. The directive states, among other key provisions, that “there shall be a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship.”
Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin, in a note to Stars and Stripes’ editorial staff across the globe Thursday, said the military deserves independent news.
“The people who risk their lives in defense of the Constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment,” Slavin wrote. “We will not compromise on serving them with accurate and balanced coverage, holding military officials to account when called for.”
Stars and Stripes first appeared during the Civil War, and it has been continuously published since World War II. It is staffed by civilian and active-duty U.S. military reporters and editors who produce daily newspapers for American troops around the world and a website, stripes.com, which is updated with news 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Parnell said Thursday that the military newspaper would now “be custom tailored to our warfighter” with a focus on “warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY.”
He said Stars and Stripes would no longer post “repurposed DC gossip columns” or “Associated Press reprints.”
Hegseth reposted Parnell’s statement.
Jacqueline Smith, Stars and Stripes’ ombudsman, said Thursday that in her two years in the role she has found the news organization has remained focused on the U.S. military.
“I can say with assurance that Stripes does focus on ‘warfighters’ in every aspect that affects them and their families,” she said.
Spokespersons for Hegseth’s office declined to provide additional comment or detail about Parnell’s statement Thursday.
A White House spokesperson referred questions about the Pentagon’s plans for Stars and Stripes to comments published in a story by the Daily Wire.
“The Department of War, under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, is continuing to revitalize, restore, and modernize,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said, according to The Daily Wire. “Stars and Stripes is just the latest example of a broader effort to adapt long-standing institutions to how today’s service members live, work, and consume information.”
The Pentagon plans for active-duty service members to produce all of Stars and Stripes’ content moving forward, according to The Daily Wire, citing unnamed Defense officials. Some 50% of the content on its website would “be composed of War Department-generated materials, including digital or print materials made by War Department writers and images captured by combat cameras,” the organization reported.
Smith said such changes would amount to “unnecessary control and the perception of propaganda.”
“That is public relations, not independent journalism,” she said. “The other ‘fifty percent’ of the content would hold no credibility.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a Marine Corps veteran who in November co-sponsored a resolution recognizing Stars and Stripes, again voiced his support on Thursday.
“Like thousands of servicemembers and veterans, I read Stars and Stripes when I was in Iraq. Stars and Stripes’ independence is exactly why troops trust it, and the Pentagon’s attempt to take over its editorial decisions undermines that trust. I’ll fight any attempt to turn Stars and Stripes into another mouthpiece for this administration’s propaganda.”
Parnell’s post came a day after a Washington Post report revealed that applicants for positions at Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would support President Donald Trump’s policies. The questionnaire appears on the USAJobs portal, the official website for federal hiring. Stars and Stripes was unaware of the questions until the Post inquired about them, organization leaders said.
The Pentagon statement comes several years after the Defense Department attempted to shut down Stars in Stripes in 2020, during Trump’s first administration. The Pentagon asked Congress then to cut funding for the publication — which is about 50% funded by tax dollars and 50% funded by advertising and subscription sales — before ordering it closed.
DOD ultimately shifted course after bipartisan lawmakers vowed to support the organization and Trump announced Stars and Stripes would remain in operation and “continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”
The Pentagon does not appear to be considering shutting the publication down.
“Stars & Stripes has a proud legacy of reporting news that’s important to our service members,” Parnell wrote in his statement. “The Department of War is committed to ensuring the outlet continues to reflect that proud legacy.”
Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday said any efforts to change Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence amounted to an attack on the First Amendment.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts; Mark Kelly, of Arizona; Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut; and Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois, all members of the committee, voiced support for Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence.
Stars and Stripes reached out to several Republican lawmakers, but none immediately responded to requests for comment.
Blumenthal called the move a “disrespect to our military, men and women.”
“I certainly will push back because I think that the independence of Stars and Stripes is absolutely essential to the public knowing the truth about what’s happening in our military and also a measure of respect to our men and women who serve and sacrifice,” added Blumenthal, a Marine Corps veteran.
Kelly, a Navy veteran, said the effort was an attack on the free press.
“I still read Stars and Stripes today. I read it in the 1980s and it is important that members of the military get uninfluenced and unfiltered news,” Kelly said. “It’s very disappointing. It’s also not unexpected.”
Stars and Stripes reporters Matthew Adams and Svetlana Shkolnikova contributed to this report.
