Pentagon Dismisses Stars and Stripes Editor and Publisher Over Reporting on a Carrier

The United States Department of Defense dismissed the editor-in-chief, the publisher and a reporter of Stars and Stripes, the newspaper that serves American military personnel abroad. Deutsche Welle reports that the editor-in-chief said he was fired for insubordination after he objected to potential editorial interference.

The Japan Times reports that the dismissals followed the paper's coverage of conditions aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and notes that Stars and Stripes receives part of its funding from the Pentagon while having operated with editorial independence for decades.

That arrangement was always unusual, and it worked because both sides observed a convention rather than a contract. The publication's independence rested on the department's willingness not to exercise the control that its funding role made available.

Readiness reporting is one of the few independent sources of information about the operational state of American forces, at a moment when the United States is conducting operations around the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining commitments in Europe and the Pacific. Removing that source of information does not change the actual condition of the fleet. It changes who is able to verify it.