Pentagon fires the top brass at Stars and Stripes for being too 'independent'
Apparently, telling the government that a newspaper shouldn't be their personal PR machine is a fireable offense these days.
So, the Pentagon just cleaned house at Stars and Stripes, giving the boot to the publisher, the editor-in-chief, and their Middle East reporter. The reason? Alleged insubordination. Basically, the leadership team had the audacity to suggest that their job was to report the news, not to act as a mouthpiece for Donald Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
The editor-in-chief, Erik Slavin , literally called editorial independence his 'red line' in an interview. That didn't go over well with the folks upstairs who seem to think 'modernizing' the paper means removing anything they deem a 'woke distraction.' It is a bold move to fire people for doing exactly what they are legally supposed to do: stay independent.
The irony is that they are firing the people who are actually trusted by the troops to give them the straight story. It’s hard to imagine how they expect to keep building credibility while simultaneously proving that they will axe anyone who speaks their mind. Nothing screams 'professionalism' quite like firing your entire editorial staff for daring to exist independently.
Source: Stars and Stripes
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