Defense Department says military newspaper Stars and Stripes must eliminate ‘woke distractions’

The Pentagon said Thursday that it is changing the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes so it concentrates on “reporting for our warfighters” and no longer includes “woke distractions.”

That message, in a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spokesman, is short on specifics and does not mention the news outlet’s legacy of independence from government and military leadership. It comes a day after The Washington Post reported that applicants for jobs at Stars and Stripes were being asked what they would do to support President Donald Trump’s policies.

Stars and Stripes traces its lineage to the Civil War and has reported news about the military either in its newspaper or online steadily since World War II, largely to an audience of service members stationed overseas. Roughly half of its budget comes from the Pentagon and its staff members are considered Defense Department employees.

The outlet’s mission statement emphasizes that it is “editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command” and that it is unique among news organizations tied to the Defense Department in being “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.”

Congress established that independence in the 1990s after instances of military leadership getting involved in editorial decisions. During Trump’s first term in 2020, Defense Secretary Mark Esper Read Entire Article