Under the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon has tried more than once to impose restrictions on the free press, and so far, those efforts have failed in court. There’s one news outlet, however, where the Defense Department has had more success. The New York Times reported:
In a blow to independent coverage of the military, the Pentagon has fired the ombudsman for Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that covers the U.S. armed forces and is partly funded by the Defense Department.
‘Apparently the Pentagon also doesn’t want you to hear from me anymore about threats to the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes,’ the ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, wrote in a Stars and Stripes column published on Thursday.
As has been the case with many recent Pentagon firings, Smith added that she was given no reason for her dismissal.
It’s important to emphasize that the role of ombudsman at Stars and Stripes was created by Congress for a reason: The person in this job is specifically tasked with ensuring the newspaper’s editorial independence.
Hegseth’s Pentagon fired her anyway, not because Smith failed to do her job, but because she did her job in ways the Republican administration found inconvenient.
As many service members and veterans likely know, Stars and Stripes is a military newspaper with a generations-old pedigree. It has long described itself as the “U.S. military’s independent news source.”
The word “independent” was — and remains — key. As it covers the military, Stars and Stripes has long enjoyed the same kind of editorial freedom that civilian newspapers have, even if that means publishing reports the Pentagon doesn’t always like.
To ensure it publishes only news reports in line with the administration’s preferred messages, Trump appointees at the DOD announced in January that they would commandeer the newspaper. By gutting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence, the Pentagon could “refocus its content away from woke distractions,” as one of Hegseth’s top deputies put it at the time.
The Washington Post reported soon after that those seeking open positions at Stars and Stripes were asked how they would advance Trump’s “policy priorities” in the role.
In March, the newspaper’s ombudsman spoke out against the moves, explaining that the administration’s actions were to “the detriment of the troops who rely on the newspaper for complete coverage and continued accurate coverage that is not propaganda.”
Since propaganda is apparently the goal, Smith was ousted a month later.
“I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” Smith told the Times late last week. The troops, she added, “deserve to have the unfiltered news, not what the Defense Department wants them to hear.”
If only Hegseth and his team agreed.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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