Secretary Austin's Pentagon Fires the Military Newspaper's Editor, Publisher and a Reporter for Telling a TV Crew That Censorship Would Be a 'Red Line'
Stated cause: insubordination. The insubordination: an interview. The interview: about whether the Pentagon would interfere with the paper. The Pentagon then interfered with the paper
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon under Secretary Austin moved Friday to remove the publisher, the editor-in-chief and a reporter of the military's independent newspaper, citing insubordination, which on inspection turned out to mean that they had said on television they would resist being told what to print.
The editor had told a Sunday-morning news program in July that any attempt by the department to direct the paper's coverage would be a red line. The department reviewed the remark, concluded it was a red line, and proceeded to cross it in order to remove the person who had drawn it, a sequence the department's notices described as discipline and the paper's staff described as the thesis of the interview being proven in real time.
The newspaper, which reaches roughly 1.4 million readers a day and is about half paid for by taxpayers, has kept editorial independence from the building it covers for decades, a tradition senior officials earlier this year said they intended to modernize by steering its content away from what they called distractions. The three employees were given five days to appeal to the institution that had fired them.
Press-freedom groups objected on the grounds that a military paper firing its editor for promising not to be censored is the kind of thing the United States usually writes reports about in other countries. Supporters of Secretary Austin said the paper answered to the department, and the department had simply answered back.
"I work for the service members," the dismissed reporter said, a position the department is understood to regard as the insubordinate part.
The Press's press desk notes that the distance between 'restoring accountability' and 'purging the newsroom' is measured, as ever, by which party's secretary is holding the pink envelope. At press time the red line remained painted across the newsroom floor, and the people who had been standing behind it had been asked to leave by the other door.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: The Pentagon moved to dismiss Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte, citing insubordination tied to their participation in a CBS Sunday Morning segment in July; Slavin said he was fired for calling any Pentagon interference with the paper's independence a 'red line.' The three were given five days to appeal. Stars and Stripes reaches about 1.4 million people daily and is roughly half taxpayer-funded; Pentagon officials earlier said they aimed to refocus its content away from 'woke distractions.' Journalism groups condemned the firings under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.