The Battle Over Stars and Stripes: A Military Paper’s Fight for Independence
Stars and Stripes has a front page unlike any other. On a day when many American front pages led with earthquakes in Venezuela and a Supreme Court decision on immigration, the military’s independent paper opened with drone tactics and the food insecurity facing service members and their families. Erik Slavin, the editor-in-chief, made the call. “We want to go with something that we know will directly interest our readers right away,” he said.
The paper is part of the Defense Department, and its reporters are Pentagon employees. But for generations it has guarded its editorial independence. “We’re trying to provide independent news for the military community,” Slavin said. The paper reaches an average of 1.4 million people a day, mostly online, while retaining a print edition for troops in remote postings where reliable internet can be hard to find.
First published during the Civil War, Stars and Stripes was revived in World War I under Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of American troops in Europe. Catherine Giordano, who was the paper’s archivist earlier this year, recalled Pershing’s message to readers: “The paper, written by the men in the service, should speak the thoughts of the New American Army and American people from whom the Army has been drawn. It is your paper. Good luck to it.” The paper has been published continuously since World War II, and has long described its mission as representing “the free thought and free expression of a free people.”
That tradition came under pressure in January, when Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X: “We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century. We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale…” Asked what he understood “woke distractions” to mean, Slavin said, “I really don’t know what they were referring to, because they didn’t explain it.”
The friction intensified in June, after Stars and Stripes published a story about upcoming European concerts by Bad Bunny, whose Super Bowl halftime show President Trump had panned as “one of the worst ever.” Lara Korte, a Middle East reporter based in Germany, wrote the piece. Asked how that related to the military, she said many newly stationed troops were looking for trips and entertainment. “I’m working for Stars and Stripes,” she said, “not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker. I’m here to cover the military community.”
Around the time of Parnell’s post, the Pentagon rescinded a federal regulation that had directed Stars and Stripes to operate “without news management or censorship.” Then, in March 2026, the deputy secretary of defense signed a memo titled “Modernization of Stars and Stripes Operations.” It acknowledged the paper’s independence but imposed new restrictions. Slavin said the paper was barred from running comics and from using paid wire service reports. That cut off stories from the Associated Press, which had been temporarily banned from the Oval Office after declining to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. “It’s more difficult for us to cover breaking news,” Slavin said.
Two members of the paper’s advisory board have filed a lawsuit accusing the Defense Department of violating the First Amendment. The Pentagon declined CBS News’ request for an interview, citing the litigation.
Jacqueline Smith, the paper’s former ombudsman, said the restrictions were a warning. “By having a government agency say, ‘You cannot print this,’ it’s the beginning of saying more – ‘You cannot print that,’ or ‘You must print this.’ It’s editorial control,” she said. In April, she opened a column with a challenge to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “Pete Hegseth doesn’t want you to see cartoons in this newspaper anymore.” She acknowledged she was “poking the bear, in a way, but I had not at all expected that retaliation.” Two weeks later, she was fired.
Stars and Stripes has weathered attempted crackdowns before. During World War II, Bill Mauldin’s cartoons showed unshaven, mud-caked enlisted men in rumpled uniforms — soldiers loved them, and Gen. George Patton did not. Patton tried to have the paper banned. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower intervened and told Patton not to interfere. Giordano said Mauldin’s work was so popular because “it depicted how war was.”
Now, eight decades later, Korte continues to report from the Middle East, including the story of military families evacuated from the Persian Gulf. “I do not feel any constraint,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’ve been stopped from covering any specific story.” But she added, “I do feel like there could be more to come.”
Smith, who is also challenging her firing, worries that the endgame is to turn Stars and Stripes into “a public affairs propaganda machine.” She points to a line in the Pentagon memo: “Stripes content must be consistent with good order and discipline of the military.” That phrase, she said, comes from military court-martial language. “They could say anything is against ‘good conduct.’”
The stakes go beyond the publication. For more than 160 years, Stars and Stripes has given service members a way to understand the wars they fight and the institutions they serve. Press freedom advocates say the Pentagon’s moves and the dismissals send a clear signal: a government-run newsroom must follow the government’s line. What remains unclear is whether the courts will set limits before the paper is reshaped.
Originally published July 5, 2026. On August 21, 2026, the Pentagon delivered separation notices to Slavin, Korte, and publisher Max Lederer, citing “insubordination.” Slavin and Korte said the dismissals followed interviews they gave to CBS Sunday Morning. “According to the notice, I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line. The Pentagon’s public affairs office has charged me with insubordination,” Slavin said. “I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies.”
WEB EXTRA: In a web exclusive, former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft talks with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin about his start as a Stars and Stripes reporter and how covering Vietnam influenced his career at CBS.
For more info: Stars and Stripes. Images courtesy of Stars and Stripes; All Rights Reserved. Story produced by Robert Marston and Mary Walsh. Editor: Chad Cardin.