Three months after the Pentagon decried the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes as “woke” and announced it would be overhauled, Defense Department official Sean Parnell fired the publication’s ombudsman, a role charged by Congress with safeguarding the paper’s editorial independence.
In a Thursday message to Stars and Stripes staff reviewed by The Washington Post, the paper’s ombudsman said the Defense Department fired her without giving a reason.
However, Jacqueline Smith said she believed she was fired for speaking out against the decision to overhaul Stars and Stripes, announced by Parnell in January, a decision she said threatened the storied paper’s long-held independence. Parnell is also the chief Pentagon spokesman.
“I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” Smith wrote in the message to staff.
Stars and Stripes staffers are Defense Department employees but have for decades operated without Pentagon interference in editorial decisions. In March, a department memo outlining a “modernization” drive for the publication included a requirement that all content be consistent with “good order and discipline,” a phrase used in military justice.
The Defense Department confirmed to The Washington Post that Smith has been “relieved of her duties as Stars and Stripes ombudsman effective immediately” but did not respond to questions about the reason for her removal.
Smith learned Tuesday from the newspaper’s publisher, Max D. Lederer Jr., that she had been taken off the department’s payroll, she told The Post. She said Lederer told her he had received notice from Parnell about the decision.
Smith has been vocally critical of the Pentagon’s recent interventions at the military newspaper, including in her columns.
“I’ve been outspoken about my concern with increasing restrictions on the press by the Pentagon and, in particular, very concerned about the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes,” Smith said. “All of this speaking out made me vulnerable.”
“It’s a way to quiet the criticism,” she added.
Lederer sent an email to staff on Thursday about the news and included the message from Smith to her former colleagues.
“The Ombudsman role is unique in that it remains independent of Stripes governance, as directed by Congress to provide vital oversight of both our journalism and the Department of War’s regulatory management,” Lederer wrote. The Department of War is the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department.
Lederer called Smith “exceptionally diligent and thoughtful” and praised her “openness and directness” in the role.
Parnell, who is also the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, will conduct a search for Smith’s replacement and choose her successor, Lederer wrote in his email.
In addition to stating that Stars and Stripes content must be consistent with “good order and discipline,” Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen A. Feinberg’s March memo about an overhaul of the publication said it “must modernize to remain relevant and viable” in the digital age. The memo outlined an “interim policy” governing the newspaper that restricted the use of wire services.
Smith took issue with that memo, telling The Post at the time that it “threatens Stars and Stripes’ continued editorial independence, and it does so at the detriment of the troops, who rely on the newspaper for complete coverage and continued accurate coverage that is not propaganda.”
Stars and Stripes staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears of retribution, said the ombudsman’s firing was troubling and continued a recent pattern of disruptions at the newspaper.
“Jacqueline did a lot to support our work and our mission,” one staffer said, describing the firing as “concerning.”
Another staffer said nothing at the newspaper surprises them anymore. “I’m numb to the Stars and Stripes process. Whatever happens will happen,” they said.
Clayton Weimers, executive director of the U.S. branch of Reporters Without Borders, said the ombudsman’s firing highlighted the Pentagon’s efforts to control the paper.
“It’s already clear that Pete Hegseth wants to turn Stars and Stripes into his own propaganda machine, and getting the ombudsman out of the way is a clear shot across the bow of Stars and Stripes’ independence,” Weimers said.
The Pentagon has placed increasing restrictions on the press during President Donald Trump’s second term. Tensions boiled over in October when hundreds of Pentagon reporters turned in their press credentials rather than submit to a new department policy that prohibited them from soliciting information that the government didn’t authorize for release, including unclassified information.
The New York Times sued over the policy, and a federal judge ruled that it violated the publication’s free speech and due process rights. The Pentagon is appealing the decision.
Because its staffers are government employees, Stars and Stripes was exempted from that policy.
Smith described what she sees as her own paper’s conflict with the Pentagon in an exit column published late Thursday, titled “The Pentagon is trying to silence me.”
In the column, she lambasted the Pentagon’s interventions and called for Congress to codify the publication’s independence.
“This newspaper has a long history of commitment to the military community and to journalistic values,” she wrote. “Please don’t let it be controlled by Pentagon brass.”
The post Pentagon fires ombudsman overseeing military newspaper after calling it ‘woke’ appeared first on Washington Post.
