Pentagon Preserves An Independent Stars And Stripes By Firing The People Who Discussed It

WASHINGTON—A federal judge has declined to stop the Pentagon from firing three Stars and Stripes staff members who spoke publicly about the military newspaper’s editorial independence, leaving that independence free from the employees most insistent on describing it.

Publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte challenged their dismissals after Slavin and Korte participated in a pre-approved CBS News interview. They objected to possible Pentagon censorship and defended the paper’s statutory and departmental protections. The dispute followed Stars and Stripes reporting on deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an especially inconvenient setting for a newspaper serving military readers to practice military reporting.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the journalists were unlikely to prove a First Amendment violation because they spoke as public employees performing official duties, not as private citizens. He wrote that their remarks largely followed the organization’s own position and said its editorial independence was not at stake. The Pentagon may therefore terminate employees for an approved interview without troubling either the First Amendment or the independence discussed during it.

The department had already installed an active-duty officer as deputy publisher without Lederer’s prior knowledge and dismissed the newspaper’s ombudsman in April. A Pentagon spokesman said earlier this year that Stars and Stripes would be custom tailored to warfighters and would no longer run Associated Press stories or what he called Washington gossip. A paper built for service members is being protected from excess contact with both outside journalism and its own civilian leadership.

The lawsuit continues, but the firings may proceed while it does. Stars and Stripes can now demonstrate its independence in the approved manner: quietly, with three more vacant desks.