Pentagon begins overhaul of ‘woke’ newspaper

Washington Post

The Defense Department says it plans to overhaul Stars and Stripes, the storied military newspaper that has long enjoyed editorial independence, to rid it of “woke distractions” and refocus coverage on “warfighting.”

Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson, announced the plan in a Thursday morning post on X.

“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” Parnell wrote, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department. He wrote that the Pentagon will “modernize” the publication and “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”

“Stars & Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters,” Parnell continued. “It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY.” He added that the publication will cease publishing “repurposed DC gossip columns” and “Associated Press reprints.”

A spokesperson for the Defense Department shared a link to Parnell’s statement but did not answer questions about how the changes would comply with Stars and Stripes’ long-standing editorial independence.

The Pentagon on Thursday also eliminated a federal regulation governing Stars and Stripes.

“The regulation is unnecessary and may be removed from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) because it does not have an impact or burden to the public,” the department wrote in a rule change submitted to the Federal Register.

On Thursday, the conservative news site the Daily Wire reported that “Fifty percent of the website’s content will be composed of War Department- generated materials, including digital or print materials made by War Department writers and images captured by combat cameras.”

Jacqueline Smith, the newspaper’s ombudsman, a congressionally mandated position tasked with defending the newspaper’s editorial independence, said the Daily Wire’s reporting was “disturbing.”

“It would remove editorial independence and credibility from Stars and Stripes and is contrary to the news organization’s mission,” Smith said. Although Stars and Stripes, founded in 1861 and continuously published since 1942, is partly funded by the Pentagon and its staffers are Defense Department employees, Congress has long affirmed the publication’s independence.

In a Thursday morning email to staff, obtained by the Post, Stars and Stripes Editor in Chief Erik Slavin said Parnell’s Thursday statement came as a shock.

“It’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you,” he wrote.