Pentagon Moves to Refocus Stars and Stripes, Citing Need to End 'Woke Distractions'

The Defense Department, through a Jan. 15 social media post by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spokesman Sean Parnell, said it is 'returning Stars and Stripes to its original mission' by refocusing the congressionally chartered military newspaper on 'reporting for our warfighters' and eliminating what it calls 'woke distractions.' Parnell said the outlet will pivot away from Associated Press reprints and 'repurposed DC gossip columns' to emphasize warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality and survivability, but offered no specifics on how that squares with Stars and Stripes’ legally protected editorial independence. Ombudsman Jacqueline Smith, who reports to the House Armed Services Committee, said she was surprised by the announcement, has seen nothing 'woke' in recent coverage, and warned that maintaining independence is 'the basis of its credibility' with service members. The move comes as the Trump Pentagon has driven most legacy reporters out of the building with restrictive new ground rules, faces a New York Times lawsuit over those regulations, and has floated shutting down other government-funded independent broadcasters like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Press‑freedom advocates and military reporters are already flagging the risk that what is framed as a content 'refocus' becomes de facto political vetting and message control of a newsroom that Congress explicitly insulated from command influence in the 1990s.