The Pentagon dismissed three top Stars and Stripes staffers, including a publisher with more than three decades at the military newspaper, after they refused to fall in line with the Defense Department's push to reshape the publication.
Publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and Middle East reporter Lara Korte all received dismissal notices on Friday, charged with insubordination. The firings followed an unauthorized CBS News appearance in which Slavin and Korte defended the paper's editorial independence, and Lederer's subsequent refusal to fire them at Pentagon leadership's direction, Fox News Digital reported.
The three staffers have five days to appeal. But the message from the Defense Department is unmistakable: Stars and Stripes will serve the Pentagon's stated mission for the paper, and employees who publicly resist that direction will be shown the door.
Slavin, who joined Stars and Stripes in 2005 as a reporter in Japan and later embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, was appointed editor-in-chief in September 2025. His dismissal notice, by his own account, centers on a single remark he made during a "CBS Sunday Morning" segment last month.
In a statement, Slavin framed the firing in stark terms:
"According to the notice, I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line. The Pentagon's public affairs office has charged me with insubordination."
He added that he stands by "the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department's own policies." Slavin did not specify which statute or policies he was citing.
Korte, a Middle East reporter who joined the paper in 2024, posted her own account on X. She said the Defense Department fired her for telling a CBS reporter that she works "for Stars and Stripes, not the Pentagon, not any administration and not any policy maker." The New York Post confirmed the same account of the firings.
Korte went further, calling the dismissals "a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press." She said she was proud of the work her colleagues had done, "especially the last six months covering the protracted conflict in Iran."
Lederer's firing carries its own twist. The Army veteran joined Stars and Stripes in 1992 and served as publisher for 19 years. Just days before the dismissal notice arrived, he had already announced to staff his intention to retire at the end of September, citing what he called "fundamental" differences with Pentagon leadership over the direction of the paper.
In his farewell message to staff, Lederer struck a measured tone:
"I have thought a great deal about the right time to step aside, and I have concluded that this is it. I leave with real pride in what we have accomplished together and with complete confidence in what you will accomplish next."
That retirement plan was overtaken by events. Pentagon leadership directed Lederer to fire Slavin and Korte over the CBS segment. He refused. The Pentagon then fired all three. Neither Lederer nor Korte responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
The episode fits a pattern. In April, the Pentagon fired the Stars and Stripes ombudsman, the staffer specifically charged with safeguarding the paper's editorial independence. Breitbart identified the ombudsman as Jacqueline Smith, who had been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's oversight of the paper.
Former ombudsman Smith, in comments reported by the Associated Press, said at the time: "No one should be surprised that they're kicking out the one person charged by Congress with protecting Stars and Stripes' editorial independence."
The firings did not come out of nowhere. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced a sweeping overhaul of Stars and Stripes back in January, posting the plan on X in blunt terms. He said the "Department of War", the Pentagon's preferred name for the Defense Department, was "returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters."
Parnell's post left little room for ambiguity about what the Pentagon wanted eliminated:
"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. Stars & Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters. 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."
That vision, a military paper focused tightly on warfighting, fitness, and weapons systems, reflects the broader priorities Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed across the department, from his speeches at West Point to personnel and readiness initiatives.
When Fox News Digital asked the Pentagon for comment on the firings, Parnell pointed to an open letter penned by Captain William Urban, the Military Deputy to the Publisher at Stars and Stripes, and shared a portion of it on X.
Urban acknowledged the challenge of adapting a legacy print publication for the digital age but pledged to maintain editorial credibility. "We may never be able to have the same impact for our service members digitally that our paper had during World War II in a vastly different media environment," Urban wrote, "but I also believe that we can do better, that we must do better for our most important constituency, the men and women who make up the U.S. Armed Forces."
He added that his vision was "simple: More eyeballs on our content and more impact on our service members while maintaining the highest standard of professional journalism with the credibility that comes with editorial independence."
The Stars and Stripes firings are the latest in a string of confrontations between Hegseth's Pentagon and journalists, both inside and outside the building. The Defense Department declared its press office a classified space, requiring reporters to be escorted on Pentagon grounds, a policy that a federal judge subsequently blocked in a legal challenge. The Washington Examiner reported that Hegseth imposed strict limits on Pentagon press corps access and eventually forced reporters out of the building entirely.
Stars and Stripes, founded during the Civil War and known for its independent coverage of military life, has occupied an unusual position: funded by the Defense Department but historically granted editorial independence by Congress. That independence has been the central fault line in every clash this year.
Hegseth's tenure has also produced friction on policy fronts well beyond media relations. He publicly broke with the acting Navy secretary over a Taiwan arms sale pause during the Iran conflict, and his new fitness screening initiatives have drawn both praise and controversy within the ranks.
But the Stars and Stripes situation raises a narrower question: When the Pentagon says it wants a military newspaper focused on "warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY," and a reporter responds by telling CBS she works for the paper and not the Pentagon, is that insubordination, or is it the job description?
Slavin and Korte say they were doing exactly what an independent press is supposed to do. The Pentagon says they defied authority. Three careers are over, and the five-day appeal clock is ticking.
A military newspaper that can't tell its own reporters' stories without Pentagon approval isn't independent in any meaningful sense. The Defense Department has every right to set a mission for Stars and Stripes, but if "editorial independence" is still the policy, someone at the Pentagon ought to act like it means something.