Don’t turn the military’s newspaper into a message platform; Stars and Stripes, February 10, 2026

 RUFUS FRIDAY | CENTER FOR INTEGRITY IN NEWS REPORTING, Stars and Stripes; Don’t turn the military’s newspaper into a message platform

"There are places where a news organization’s values aren’t just written down, they’re literally inscribed on the walls.

Recently, staff at the Stars and Stripes press facility at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, the largest United States overseas military facility, unveiled a large mural titled “Stars and Stripes’ Core Values.” The words aren’t subtle: Credibility. Impartiality. Truth-telling. Balanced. Accountable.

Those aren’t marketing slogans. They are the compact between a newsroom and its readers, and especially important when the readership is the U.S. military community, often far from home, often in harm’s way.

That is why the Department of Defense’s recent posture toward Stars and Stripes is so alarming.

According to reporting by The Associated Press and other news organizations, the Pentagon said in a public statement by a spokesperson for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that it would “refocus” Stars and Stripes away from certain subject areas and toward content “custom tailored to our warfighters,” including weapons systems, fitness, lethality and related themes. The same reporting describes proposed steps such as removing content from wire services like the AP and Reuters and having a significant portion of content produced by the Pentagon itself.

Stars and Stripes is unusual and intentionally structured as-so on purpose. The paper’s own “About” page states plainly that it is “editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command,” and “unique among Department of Defense authorized news outlets” in being “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.” 

In August 2025, Stars and Stripes took a step that I believe should be studied by every news organization trying to rebuild trust: it adopted and published a statement of core values emphasizing credibility and impartiality, and drawing a bright line between news and opinion. 

When a government authority suddenly declares that a news outlet must abandon certain viewpoints and then signals it will take a more hands-on role in shaping editorial operations, it sends a clear message to readers: the outlet is being pressured to produce coverage that satisfies those in power, rather than reporting grounded in facts.

No serious newsroom can sustain trust under that condition, which is already in dangerously short supply. Gallup reports that Americans’ confidence in mass media has fallen to historic lows, with just 28% expressing a great deal or fair amount of trust. When Gallup began measuring media trust in the 1970s, that figure routinely exceeded two-thirds of the public.

If our nation is struggling to persuade people that journalism is independent, accurate, objective, impartial and not an instrument of power, why would we take one of the country’s most symbolically important newsrooms, an outlet serving people in uniform, and wrap it more tightly inside the very institution it is entrusted to cover?

Last fall, I was in Japan for the 80th anniversary celebration of the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes. In a detailed first-person account, the gala’s keynote speaker, journalist Steve Herman, described the paper’s long history of resisting becoming a “propaganda rag,” including General Eisenhower’s defense of the paper’s independence. 

That history matters because it explains why generations of commanders tolerated uncomfortable stories: a paper that service members trust does more for cohesion and legitimacy than one that reads like a propaganda platform for approved narratives.

The Stars and Stripes values statement puts it plainly: “Credibility is the greatest asset of any news medium,” and impartiality is its “greatest source of credibility.” It describes truth-telling as the core mission, accountability as a discipline, and it emphasizes the strict separation between news and opinion. 

Those principles are neither ideological nor hostile to the military. They are the foundational principles of a free press, and they are especially important when the audience is made up of people who swear an oath to uphold the Constitution.

The Americans who serve in our Armed Forces deserve more than information that flatters authority.

They deserve journalism that respects them enough to tell the truth.

That mural in South Korea has it right. Credibility. Impartiality. Truth-telling. Balanced. Accountable.

We should treat those words as a promise kept and a commitment upheld.

Rufus Friday serves as chairman of the Stars and Stripes publisher advisory board of directors and is the former publisher of the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington, Kentucky. Currently he is the executive director of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting."

As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump; The Guardian, February 8, 2026

 Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr, The Guardian; As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the storied newspaper has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Trump’s attacks

"The email landed in Lizzie Johnson’s in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country’s power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

“Difficult news,” was the subject line. The body text said: “Your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes,” explaining that it was necessary to get rid of her to meet the “evolving needs of our business”.

Johnson’s response may go down in the annals of American media history. “I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone,” she wrote on X. “I have no words.”

The Washington Post’s Ukraine correspondent may have been rendered speechless over Wednesday’s move by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire and Post owner, to cut more than 300 newsroom jobs. The bloodletting, which has raised renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks, swept away the paper’s entire sports department, much of its culture and local staff and all of its journalists in such arid news zones as Ukraine and the Middle East.

Others, though, managed to find their tongues. “It’s a bad day,” said Don Graham, son of the Post’s legendary Watergate-era owner Katharine Graham, breaking the silence he has maintained since selling the paper to Bezos for $250m in 2013.

“I am crushed,” was the lament of Bob Woodward, one-half of the paper’s double act with Carl Bernstein that exposed Watergate.

“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” said Marty Baron, the Post’s lionised former executive editor. Not one to mince his words, Baron castigated Bezos for his “sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump”, saying it left an especially “ugly stain” on the paper’s standing...

The cumulative malaise that is descending over US media leaves the country’s democratic institutions vulnerable to attack. It can’t be exclusively blamed for Trump’s excesses.

There are plenty of other willing accomplices and capitulators, including universities like Columbia, corporate law firms and the gung-ho conservative activists who now control the supreme court.

But from Trump’s perspective, a media on its knees surely helps. The results are present everywhere you look.

Trump is unleashed, unchained. He feels so comfortable in his regal skin that he can berate a respected female CNN reporter questioning him on the Epstein files for never smiling.

He can peddle unashamedly in racism, posting a video depicting the first Black president and his first lady as monkeys.

He can send a masked paramilitary into the streets of Minneapolis, resulting in Americans getting killed for exercising their first amendment rights. And when the polls for November’s midterm elections look challenging for him, he can prepare for another blitzkrieg on the very foundations of American democracy: the ballot box.

There’s a paradox in all this. Many of the democratic norms that Trump is obliterating – take for example his destruction of the norm of Department of Justice independence in his persecution of his political opponents – were laid down in the 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

That’s the same Watergate scandal that was brought into the light by that pair of courageous reporters at a newspaper called the Washington Post."

The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.; The Atlantic, February 4, 2026

 Ashley Parker, The Atlantic ; The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

"We’re witnessing a murder.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.

Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)

The Post may yet rise, but this will be their enduring legacy."

Pentagon says it will ‘refocus’ Stars and Stripes content; Stars and Stripes, January 15, 2026

COREY DICKSTEIN, Stars and Stripes; Pentagon says it will ‘refocus’ Stars and Stripes content

[Kip Currier: Forward this Stars and Stripes article about Pete Hegseth's plans for the military newspaper to as many as possible. It's valuable perspective to hear from Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin and members of Congress.]

[Excerpt]

"The Pentagon said on social media Thursday it would take over editorial content decision-making for Stars and Stripes in a statement from the Defense Department’s top spokesman.

“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters. We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top public affairs official and a close adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wrote in a statement posted to X. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”

The statement appears to challenge the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, which while a part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity has long retained independence from editorial oversight from the Pentagon under a congressional mandate that it be governed by First Amendment principles.

The move was met with pushback from several Democratic senators, who accused the Pentagon of tampering with the newspaper’s reporting.

Stars and Stripes, which is dedicated to serving U.S. government personnel overseas, seeks to emulate the best practices of commercial news organizations in the United States. It is governed by Department of Defense Directive 5122.11. The directive states, among other key provisions, that “there shall be a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship.”

Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin, in a note to Stars and Stripes’ editorial staff across the globe Thursday, said the military deserves independent news.

“The people who risk their lives in defense of the Constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment,” Slavin wrote. “We will not compromise on serving them with accurate and balanced coverage, holding military officials to account when called for.”

Stars and Stripes first appeared during the Civil War, and it has been continuously published since World War II. It is staffed by civilian and active-duty U.S. military reporters and editors who produce daily newspapers for American troops around the world and a website, stripes.com, which is updated with news 24 hours a day, seven days a week...

Parnell’s post came a day after a Washington Post report revealed that applicants for positions at Stars and Stripes were being asked how they would support President Donald Trump’s policies. The questionnaire appears on the USAJobs portal, the official website for federal hiring. Stars and Stripes was unaware of the questions until the Post inquired about them, organization leaders said.

The Pentagon statement comes several years after the Defense Department attempted to shut down Stars in Stripes in 2020, during Trump’s first administration."

Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’; The Hill, January 15, 2026

ELLEN MITCHELL , The Hill; Pentagon taking over Stars and Stripes to eliminate ‘woke distractions’

[Kip Currier: It's unfortunate but not surprising to see that Pete Hegseth, given his actions to date, is taking "editorial control" of the Stars and Stripes newspaper that was started by Union soldiers on November 9, 1861, in the midst of the Civil War.]

[Excerpt]

"The Pentagon announced Thursday it would take editorial control of independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to refocus coverage on “warfighting” and remove “woke distractions.”

The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” top Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement posted to X. “We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted Parnell’s statement.

Part of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity, Stars and Stripes has been editorially independent from Defense Department officials since a congressional mandate in the 1990s. The outlet’s mission statement states that it is “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.” 

In some form since the Civil War, Stars and Stripes has consistently reported on the military since World War II to an audience mostly of service members stationed overseas."

With Pittsburgh set to lose legacy paper, experts talk impact of Post-Gazette closure announcement; WESA, January 7, 2026

 Julia Maruca , 90.5 WESA; With Pittsburgh set to lose legacy paper, experts talk impact of Post-Gazette closure announcement

"Wednesday’s announced closure of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has left media experts reeling and wondering about what the future holds for the city’s news environment...

The Blocks’ announced intention to shut down the Post-Gazette — following a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the company’s application for a stay in reinstating health care for the workers — means Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas will lose their oldest newspaper.

The legacy publication, first started in 1786 by John Scull and Joseph Hall as the Pittsburgh Gazette, has long touted itself as the “the first newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains.” And after the paper publishes its last issue this May, the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of 1.2 million people will be without a daily newspaper specifically dedicated to covering the city...

“ One would imagine any number of other parties may be interested in talking with the Blocks about possibly purchasing some or all of the assets of the paper. There are still a lot of open questions,” Davidson said. “I don't think we've seen the end of this story yet.”"

Trumpy Owners Close Major City’s Pulitzer-Winning Newspaper: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is the region’s largest newspaper.; The Daily Beast, January 7, 2026

 Laura Esposito , The Daily Beast; Trumpy Owners Close Major City’s Pulitzer-Winning Newspaper: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is the region’s largest newspaper.

"Billionaire twins John and Allan Block suddenly told dozens of workers for the 125-year-old Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that it will cease publication on May 3. The paper had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for its coverage of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre. But at 1:15 p.m., with just 45 minutes notice, they played a pre-taped Zoom announcement that the newspaper would close completely...

The twins are third generation owners of the paper through the family company Block Communications which also owns the Toledo Blade...

The twins, 71, have heavily backed President Donald Trump and have donated thousands of dollars to Republican causes...

Two years later, the Post-Gazette made national headlines for “shifting right” after John Block fired the Post-Gazette’s veteran cartoonist, Rob Rogers, over cartoons critical of Trump.

During the president’s 2020 campaign, John Block ordered the editorial board to endorse Trump—despite previously granting its request not to endorse a candidate—an insider at the publication told the Daily Beast. The board was forced to scrap its planned editorial just an hour before the print deadline and hastily write a new piece backing Trump, much to the staffers’ dismay.

On Wednesday, the brothers delivered the stunning news to staff via a brief, pre-recorded video, Post-Gazette reporters told the Daily Beast—despite owning multiple properties within short driving distance of the newsroom, including John Block’s sprawling Squirrel Hill mansion worth over $1.5 million.

Instead, staffers received an email at 12:34 p.m. informing them of a mandatory online meeting scheduled for 1:15 p.m. The meeting turned out to be a pre-recorded message that reporters described as “dehumanizing.”"...

Tensions between ownership and union journalists reached a boiling point in 2019, when John Block reportedly stormed into the newsroom and threatened to “burn the place down.”

Several staffers believe the Blocks are shutting down the outlet as punishment after a federal appeals court upheld a November ruling finding that the Post-Gazette illegally declared an impasse in union negotiations to impose its own terms."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Announces It Will Cease Operations; The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 7, 2026

Mark Walker, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Announces It Will Cease Operations

[Kip Currier: As someone who loves and depends on the vital access to information that newspapers singularly provide, my heart sunk when I saw this breaking news New York Times story about the Block family's decision to shutter The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as of May 3, 2026. It's a shocking and yet not surprising development, given the appalling manner in which the Block family has managed this storied newspaper for more than a decade:

• Read about the Block family's firing of celebrated cartoonist Rob Rogers in 2018 for his depictions of Donald Trump.
• Read about the Block family's tirades against newspaper staff in 2019.
• Read about an appellate court ruling against the Block family on labor union grounds in a November 2025 decision.

The most unfortunate victims of the Block family's actions are the newspaper staff, the residents of the Greater Pittsburgh area, and all those who are interested in news involving this region.]

[Excerpt]

"The family-owned company that operates The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said on Wednesday that the newspaper would cease publication on Sunday, May 3, signaling the end of a newspaper whose origins date to 1786.

The company, Block Communications Inc., said it had lost more than $350 million over the past 20 years while publishing the newspaper. In a statement, it said the financial pressures facing local journalism had made “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”

The company cited recent court decisions that would require The Post-Gazette to operate under the terms of a 2014 labor contract, which it described as imposing “outdated and inflexible operational practices.” 

The Post-Gazette’s closure will not affect The Toledo Blade in Ohio, which is also owned by Block Communications. The company is based in Toledo.

The Post-Gazette’s closure will not affect The Toledo Blade in Ohio, which is also owned by Block Communications. The company is based in Toledo.

In a statement, the Block family said it regretted how the loss of the newspaper would affect the communities it has served. The family said it was “proud of the service The Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”"

New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights; The New York Times, December 4, 2025

 Erik Wemple, The New York Times ; New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights

"The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.

In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”

The rules, which went into effect in October, are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope. They require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets restrictions on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to Pentagon sources. Reporters who don’t comply could lose their press passes, and the Pentagon has accorded itself “unbridled discretion” to enforce the policy as it sees fit, according to the lawsuit."

To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots; The New York Times, November 6, 2025

 Minho Kim , The New York Times; To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots

[Kip Currier: This new discretionary DHS records policy is counter to sound ethics practices and democracy-centered values.

Preservation of records promotes transparency, the historical record, accountability, access to information, informed citizenries, the right to petition one's government, free and independent presses, and more. The new DHS records policy undermines all of the above.]

[Excerpt]

"The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week.

Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software.

Public records experts say the new record-keeping policy opens ample room for both willful and unwitting noncompliance with federal open records laws in an administration that has already shown a lack of interest in, or willingness to skirt, records laws. That development could be particularly troubling as the department executes President Trump’s aggressive agenda of mass deportations, a campaign that has included numerous accusations of misconduct by law enforcement officials, the experts said.

“If you are an immigration official or an agent and believe that the public might later criticize you, or that your records could help you be held accountable, would you go out of the way to preserve those records that might expose wrongdoing?” said Lauren Harper, who advocates government transparency at the Freedom of the Press Foundation."

Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump; Associated Press (AP) via Washington Post, January 4, 2025

 Todd Richmond | AP via Washington Post; Washington Post cartoonist quits after paper rejects sketch of Bezos bowing to Trump

[Kip Currier: Note that this story posted at 8:08 PM EST January 4, 2025 on the Washington Post website is written by an Associated Press (AP) reporter, not a Washington Post reporter. I have not yet located an article or OpEd piece written by a Washington Post staff person that addresses the Ann Telnaes editorial cartoon controversy, other than the Substack article by Ann Telnaes explaining her resignation.

• When and how will the Washington Post cover this story, and even more importantly, the implications for free presses, access to information, free expression, and democracy?
• Where are the Washington Post OpEd pieces about these issues by internal commentators like Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, Eric Wemple, etc.?
• Will there be no coverage by the newspaper itself that killed Ann Telnaes' draft cartoon?

The Washington Post's tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is fast becoming an ironic commentary on its own ethical lapses in timely and fulsome reporting, transparency, accountability, and journalistic integrity.]

[Excerpt]

"A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper’s owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump.” Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations."