Pentagon Fires Editor and Publisher of U.S. Military Newspaper

The Pentagon has fired the editor-in-chief and publisher of the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

On Friday, the Pentagon provided separation notices to editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and publisher Max Lederer, CBS News reported. The notices said that the two had five days to appeal the decision, according to CBS.

Slavin told The Associated Press that he was dismissed for insubordination “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” In July, CBS published a story featuring an interview with Slavin, in which he stressed the importance of the newspaper’s independence.

“We need to be able to provide independent news to service members,” he told CBS. “If we can’t do that, if we were turned into something other than that, if we were public relations? Yeah, that's the foxhole.”

While Stars and Stripes receives part of its funding from the Pentagon, it has a years-long history of being editorially independent. In January, though, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the Department of Defense “is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission” and is “bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century.”

“We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members,” he said in a post on X in January.

In March, more details about the department’s “modernization” overhaul for Stars and Stripes were revealed by an internal memo, which included a provision that content published by the newspaper must be aligned with “good order and discipline,” a phrase that is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

News of the firings also comes after Lederer announced on Tuesday that he plans to retire, effective Sept. 30. Lederer, who has been publisher of the newspaper for nearly two decades, said that he came to the decision after he realized that his “understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes” diverged in “fundamental ways” from the Pentagon’s plans for the newspaper. He said he disagreed with parts of the modernization plan revealed in March, including the Pentagon’s desire to transition all print products to digital; Lederer said he worried that the move would affect the accessibility of Stars and Stripes for some service members.

“I think the right step is for me to step down, get out of the way, and let different leadership step in and continue to make this, the great organization that it is, even better,” Lederer told Stars and Stripes.

In April, the Department of Defense fired the newspaper’s ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith. As ombudsman, Smith was tasked with ensuring the organization’s editorial independence. Smith told her colleagues in a message at the time, which was seen by The Washington Post, that the Pentagon didn’t provide a reason for her firing, but that she believed the decision came down because she criticized the agency’s moves to overhaul the newspaper.

“I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” she wrote in her message to her colleagues, according to the Post.

In June, Smith filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Defense, in which she alleged that her firing was retaliatory and a violation of her First Amendment rights.

Source: Read the original article on time.com