Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently engaged in another one of his personnel purges in an attempt to transform the military into one that thinks like him. Having already fired senior military commanders and top military lawyers, Hegseth has now forced out, for “insubordination,” the top two civilians who run the storied military newspaper Stars and Stripes, according to outgoing editor-in-chief Erik Slavin.
Hegseth’s allegation of insubordination is based on the insistence of the publisher, the editor-in-chief and a reporter at Stars and Stripes that their news desk be editorially independent of the Pentagon. Indeed, such freedom has been the newspaper’s statutory and regulatory mandate for decades, and even before then, such independence was its institutional legacy. Hegseth seems determined to change all that, despite the legal framework.
Let’s be clear: The Stars and Stripes, a uniquely American military news outlet started during the Civil War, is not the Pentagon’s Pravda, even if Hegseth thinks it should be.
Let’s be clear: The Stars and Stripes, a uniquely American military news outlet started during the Civil War, is not the Pentagon’s Pravda, even if Hegseth thinks it should be. While its operational support flows from the Pentagon, it is separate by design from military public affairs and the Pentagon press secretary. Partially funded by Congress to serve military members and their families, primarily those serving overseas and in deployed locations, the newspaper was published sporadically until World War II. It has been in continual publication ever since, providing news of particular interest to service members even when their deployment to austere locations makes their access to other sources impossible.
The Stripes is charged to operate according to journalistic standards, and it has the same First Amendment protections and freedoms other news outlets do, including the freedom to publish items that criticize the Trump administration or challenge a MAGA narrative.
It seems obvious why Hegseth considers Stars and Stripes’ leadership insubordinate. He and the Trump administration more broadly have been intolerant of criticism. The administration also understands the usefulness of propaganda to intimidate, indoctrinate, control, divert the public’s attention and scapegoat. From the Jan. 6 insurrection to Iranian schoolgirls killed in an errant U.S. missile strike, from the number of U.S. casualties in the war with Iran to the deplorable conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, this administration consistently shirks responsibility and accountability, deflects critiques and subverts facts in favor of falsehoods.
Why wouldn’t Hegseth want to control the Stripes’ content, if he believes such control can feed service members MAGA viewpoint-friendly articles and limit criticism of the Trump administration and Pentagon? He’s already suppressed speech within the ranks and silenced those who have viewpoints unaligned with MAGA ideology. Now such politicization extends to what news those service members consume.
Regarding Hegseth’s takeover of the Stripes, the die was cast in April when he removed the Stripes’ ombudsman. Congress created the ombudsman position after the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s to help ensure that the Stars and Stripes remained independent from the military. The ombudsman Hegseth fired has challenged her firing in court. In January, three months before her termination, Hegseth’s press secretary blindsided the Stripes’ editorial team by crowing on X: “the Stars & Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters. It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.”
Hegseth later replaced the Stripes’ extant governing regulations with an ominous new directive that prohibits it from purchasing other news outlets’ articles (thus eliminating Associated Press content). The directive also expands the previously short list of prohibited content. The restriction goes far beyond barring information harmful to national security to prohibit content that fails to support good order and discipline because of impact on readiness, a highly ambiguous and manipulatable category custom built for abuse. The old regulation stated that “[t]he calculated withholding of unfavorable news is prohibited.” Unsurprisingly, Hegseth’s new policy omits this guidance.
Hegseth’s leadership purge at Stars and Stripes is the same song, different verse of his more general antipathy toward the press. Recall his earlier aggressive moves against the Pentagon press corps, including unlawfully demanding an oath, kicking some reporters out of the building and establishing a rule requiring approved journalists to be escorted into the Pentagon. This most recent salvo is another operation in his campaign against the First Amendment.
Get rid of the free press, and you lose a government accountable to the people. In its place you’ll get one even more unshackled from restraint, and with even tighter control over the most powerful military in the world.
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