The Defense Department said it plans to overhaul Stars and Stripes, the storied military newspaper that has long enjoyed editorial independence, to rid it of “woke distractions” and refocus coverage on “warfighting.”
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, announced the plan in a Thursday morning post on X.
“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” Parnell wrote, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department. He wrote that the Pentagon will “modernize” the publication and “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”
“Stars & Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters,” Parnell continued. “It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY.” He added that the publication will cease publishing “repurposed DC gossip columns” and “Associated Press reprints.”
A spokesperson for the Defense Department shared a link to Parnell’s statement but did not answer questions about how the changes would comply with Stars and Stripes’ long-standing editorial independence.
The Pentagon on Thursday also eliminated a federal regulation governing Stars and Stripes. “The regulation is unnecessary and may be removed from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) because it does not have an impact or burden to the public,” the department wrote in a rule change submitted to the Federal Register.
On Thursday, the conservative news site the Daily Wire reported that “Fifty percent of the website’s content will be composed of War Department-generated materials, including digital or print materials made by War Department writers and images captured by combat cameras.”
Jacqueline Smith, the newspaper’s ombudsman, a congressionally mandated position tasked with defending the newspaper’s editorial independence, said the Daily Wire’s reporting is “disturbing.”
“It would remove editorial independence and credibility from Stars and Stripes and is contrary to the news organization’s mission,” Smith said.
Parnell’s announcement came a day after The Washington Post first reported that applicants for jobs at Stars and Stripes are being asked to lay out their commitment to the policy initiatives of President Donald Trump, prompting condemnation from the paper’s top brass.
Although Stars and Stripes, founded in 1861 and continuously published since 1942, is partly funded by the Pentagon and its staffers are Defense Department employees, Congress has long affirmed the publication’s independence.
In a Thursday morning email to staff, obtained by The Post, Stars and Stripes Editor in Chief Erik Slavin said Parnell’s Thursday statement came as a shock. “It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you,” he wrote.
“While we are still gathering facts — we will report the story as objectively as we do all stories — I can tell you this: I believe with all my soul in what we do,” Slavin continued in the email. “I will work with our leadership to preserve Stars and Stripes as an independent news source for the military community, produced by the best journalists, civilian and military alike.
“The people who risk their lives in defense of the constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment. We will not compromise on serving them with accurate and balanced coverage, holding military officials to account when called for,” Slavin wrote.
The military newspaper reported on Parnell’s announcement in a Thursday article.
A Stripes reporter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they didn’t have management’s authorization to comment, said: “My sense is that everyone is trying to figure out what this means, editors and management included.”
Aside from Smith, the ombudsman, Stars and Stripes did not immediately provide comment.
Kathy Kiely, a professor at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, lambasted the Pentagon’s plan to take over the Stripes.
“They are basically blowing apart the legacy of Stars and Stripes, and unless Congress asserts itself, there will be no more independent newspaper for the nation’s troops, because it’ll just be a mouthpiece for the Department of Defense,” Kiely said. “It’s going to be a zombie news outlet.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and ranking Democrat Jack Reed (Rhode Island) did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Neither did their counterparts on the House Armed Services Committee, Mike D. Rogers (R-Alabama) and Adam Smith (D-Washington).
Katherine Jacobsen, the U.S., Canada and Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Thursday’s announcement underscores the Trump administration’s broader efforts to target the media.
“This is a move away from the kind of transparency and traditional reporting that you would hope for from Stars and Stripes,” she said, calling it “very much in keeping with the administration’s relentless efforts to control the narrative.”
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