(Editor’s note: This op-ed is part of a Seattle Times Opinion series exploring the First Amendment and its five freedoms.)
When I retired last year after a lifetime in newsrooms, suing the federal government wasn’t part of my plan.
Being a newspaper editor gave me a sense of purpose, so in retirement I looked for a way to stay engaged in civic life. The opportunity instead found me: I was invited to join the Publisher’s Advisory Board of Stars and Stripes.
Stripes is a 165-year-old news operation serving military members and their families around the world, in print and digitally. It’s attached to the military, but by regulation and practice has operated with a mission to produce independent journalism, free of military control.
Serving on its board would enable me to work with other current or former editors and publishers to help strengthen Stripes for its very deserving readers.
But instead, the board watched as the Pentagon began to unravel the institution and its mission, trash Stripes’ journalism, strip its independence, fire some of its best people for speaking the truth, and threaten to replace good journalism with public-relations content. They even took away comics.
For those of us on the board — and the brave souls on staff — it felt like death by a thousand cuts, each deeper than the last. Now I can see that we were witnessing a deliberate and relentless assault on the First Amendment, even as it served some of the most patriotic of our citizens.
That’s why, on June 3, I volunteered to become a plaintiff in a lawsuit in federal court: Dardarian v. Department of Defense. The purpose: to save Stars and Stripes.
As an editor in Washington and Minnesota, I was a plaintiff in many court cases seeking to open public documents, courtrooms and government meetings. This would be my biggest fight yet.
Stripes’ long, colorful and sometimes rocky history began when a handful of Union soldiers took over a Confederate printing press in Bloomfield, Mo. After a short run, it rose again during World War I, staffed by members of the military but with a ban on military control or censorship. During World War II, it took hold, growing to 32 editions published daily around the globe.
One of its most pivotal free-speech moments was in 1944, when Army soldier and cartoonist Bill Mauldin joined the staff, engaging his readers with renderings of bedraggled soldiers and sometimes unfavorable depictions of the military brass. His biting cartoons earned him a Pulitzer Prize, but before that it incurred the wrath of Gen. George Patton, who sought to punish Mauldin and control Stripes’ content. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, rejected Patton’s effort. “Stars and Stripes is the soldiers’ paper,” Eisenhower said, “and we won’t interfere.”
Stripes has served the troops continuously since then, and civilian journalists have joined the staff. Through the years, journalists embedded with troops in combat zones around the world. Stripes added wire content from news services, from global, national and local news to op-eds, features and more comics. Particularly for readers who were deployed and unable to access American news, Stripes was and is a lifeline home.
In the late 1980s, what’s now known as the Government Accountability Office was directed to investigate roughly 200 allegations of censorship or improper news management at Stars and Stripes. It confirmed many, saying it was partly the result of the conflicting missions of the military and a news organization. It recommended a host of changes: instructing military officers not to influence content, encouraging investigative reporting and ensuring that the editor be a civilian, less likely to bow to pressure from the brass.
Those changes were adopted, both in military directives and federal regulations governing Stripes’ operations. Language was added encouraging the adoption of journalistic standards of commercial media. An ombudsman was added to safeguard independence. As Stripes’ coverage grew, it covered more controversial issues, continued to publish stories unflattering to the military and was recognized with journalism awards.
Stripes’ journalists know their audience. Their attention to military news, strategy and its effects on front-line servicepeople taught me about life in the armed services — particularly as local outlets reduced military coverage. I’ve followed Stripes’ coverage of substandard military housing, sexual assaults on base, combat-related health issues and transgender policies. As the war in Iran broke out, one staffer reported firsthand on retaliatory attacks on the U.S. base in Bahrain. Stripes reported on extensive damage to the base and how it would affect those stationed there and their families.
Stripes was also among the first to report on concerns about impacts of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln’s long deployment: food rationing, water shortages, exhaustion and serious mental health issues.
Reading Stripes stirs the same pride I’d felt in my own newsrooms as they took on tough stories under challenging conditions. I was gratified to help in any way I could.
That opportunity came in January, with a post on X from the Pentagon’s top public affairs official, who reports directly to the secretary of defense:
“ … We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century. We will … refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members. … It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints….”
Just a post. No notice to anyone at Stripes.
Like others in the operation, I was stunned and struggled to understand how the Pentagon could possibly act on such a mission, given protections in place for Stripes’ independence.
That question was answered quickly, when the secretary of defense “withdrew” those federal regulations with a notice in the Federal Register. The regulations, it said, were “unnecessary.”
A memo and rewritten directives governing Stripes’ operations soon followed, and despite a pledge of independence, the changes demonstrated otherwise: Stripes could no longer use syndicates like AP or publish editorial cartoons (a ban on all comics was dropped). Mentions of First Amendment protection were lost, as well as requirements for a civilian editor, but there was mention that content should uphold “good order and discipline,” a catchall phrase from the military criminal code. It was deemed that public relations staff and content would be added to Stripes.
Readers were outraged. Members of Congress peppered the Pentagon with questions. The National Military Families Association urged the Pentagon to maintain Stripes’ independence. As its CEO said, “For a lot of military families, it’s not just a paper. It’s a lifeline.”
Some board members searched for some way to intervene legally. And columns by our ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, raised alarms: “The future of the reputable newspaper that dates to civil war is in danger.”
Then, with no warning, Smith was fired. Her final column’s headline: “The Pentagon is trying to silence me.“
In June, lawyers from Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that agreed to handle our case pro bono, filed suit in Washington, D.C. Bill Church, a fellow board member and executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, and I were the original plaintiffs in the case, which challenged the legality of the Pentagon’s actions. Two more plaintiffs joined the suit later.
It was heartening to see coverage from other media. In a CBS Sunday Morning report, Stripes’ top editor, Erik Slavin, said that if it came to it, he wouldn’t comply with censorship or direction to substitute a Pentagon-written story for an accurate staff-written story. Germany-based reporter Lara Korte said she saw herself working for readers and Stripes, not military leadership.
On Aug. 12, the day after Stripes ran a story on the USS Lincoln, the Pentagon ordered Publisher Max D. Lederer Jr. to fire Slavin and Korte, citing their CBS interviews. He refused, turned in his resignation, and the Pentagon then fired all three, citing insubordination.
They also filed suit, contending that their firings were not only due to the interviews, but because of coverage, particularly USS Lincoln stories.
Stripes is now without its publisher, editor, ombudsman and a top reporter. Journalists who remain are working harder than ever to carry out their mission.
I’m buoyed by the support for Stripes, not just in my circle of friends and family, but around the globe: military and civilians, veterans and recruits, Republicans and Democrats, journalists and elected officials.
But with the administration’s recent ban on certain news organizations from the White House — lifted under court order on Friday — I’m angry that the assault on the press is so broad and unrelenting.
What can save Stripes now? The courts could step in. The president could tell Pentagon chiefs to back off. Or Congress could act; some members have proposed new regulations and legislation. The House Armed Services Committee recently instructed the GAO to review and report on the threat to Stripes’ independence — again.
This wasn’t a fight I was looking for, but I’m sticking with it. This is about more than saving a newspaper. It’s about upholding the very Constitution our military men and women are sworn to protect.
Eisenhower said it best: “Free press and free speech. These are two great principles we are fighting to preserve. They are among the basic rights of mankind.”
