\n The Trump administration is exerting political pressure on Stars & Stripes, the independent military newspaper that informs US servicemembers worldwide.\n <\/p>\n
\n Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced Thursday that the Department of Defense will \u201cmodernize\u201d the outlet and \u201crefocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Parnell\u2019s statement came as a shock to staffers at Stars & Stripes, who haven\u2019t heard directly about any changes yet, and who now fear that the news outlet\u2019s independence and credibility is at risk.\n <\/p>\n
\n The statement also drew swift criticism from several Democratic lawmakers and First Amendment advocates.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Pentagon is trying to turn this independent newsroom into a mouthpiece for the administration\u2019s political messaging,\u201d said Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director for PEN America. \u201cThis action tramples both the First Amendment and the congressional mandate that the publication remain editorially independent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Congress has repeatedly affirmed and sought to protect the newspaper\u2019s unique status.\n <\/p>\n
\n Stars & Stripes is a product of the US military and is partly funded by the Pentagon, but it models itself after commercial newspapers and covers the news freely, \u201cwithout news management or censorship,\u201d as Department of Defense policy states.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cBy keeping its audience informed, Stars and Stripes enhances military readiness and better enables U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship,\u201d the newspaper\u2019s website says.\n <\/p>\n
\n Parnell, a close ally of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, described a few specific adjustments. \u201cNo more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints,\u201d he wrote.\n <\/p>\n
\n Like many papers, Stars & Stripes runs wire stories from The Associated Press and Reuters, but Pentagon officials told right-wing website The Daily Wire that \u201cthis will no longer be the case.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The Daily Wire also reported that all of the paper\u2019s content \u201cwill be written by active-duty service members,\u201d which alarmed the civilian staff who currently write stories.\n <\/p>\n
\n Parnell described Stars & Stripes as being \u201ccustom tailored to our warfighters\u201d going forward, prompting some journalists to say that the paper already is.\n <\/p>\n
\n With no further details about what\u2019s next, \u201cpeople are obviously concerned about what this means for our ability to produce journalism going forward,\u201d a Stripes staffer told CNN on condition of anonymity.\n <\/p>\n
\n Richardson, of PEN America, urged Congress to \u201ccontinue to protect Stars and Stripes\u2019 editorial independence and ensure the administration allows it to serve military members free from political influence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration is exerting political pressure on Stars & Stripes, the independent military newspaper that informs US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-410315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}