Sunday, April 26, 2026

PEN America Sounds Alarm Over Pentagon’s Firing of Stars and Stripes Ombudsman

“Even as the nation is at war, Pentagon leadership is silencing independent voices that uphold credible reporting, part of a broader pattern of restricting press access to evade scrutiny.”



Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing on April 24, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)


Jake Johnson
Apr 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

PEN America, one of the nation’s leading free expression groups, voiced alarm Friday at the Pentagon’s firing of the ombudsman for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, warning the move marks yet another blow to US press freedoms amid the Trump administration’s war of choice in Iran and other lawless actions across the globe.

“Even as the nation is at war, Pentagon leadership is silencing independent voices that uphold credible reporting, part of a broader pattern of restricting press access to evade scrutiny,” Tim Richardson, PEN America’s journalism and disinformation program director, said in a statement. “Congress must defend the statutory independence of Stars and Stripes so that service members can continue to rely on it for independent reporting.”

Jacqueline Smith, who was tasked with upholding the Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence from the Pentagon—which partially funds the newspaper—publicly announced her firing on Thursday in a defiant editorial, writing: “Apparently the Pentagon... doesn’t want you to hear from me anymore about threats to the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes.”

Smith, who has served in the congressionally mandated ombudsman role since December 2023, wrote in Stars and Stripes that while she was not given a reason for her firing, “no one should be surprised” by the decision.

“For nearly a year, Pentagon leadership has placed more and more restrictions on the mainstream media. The New York Times sued and when the Defense/War Department lost in court, instead of following the judge’s ruling Secretary [Pete] Hegseth and company pivoted, finding another way to restrict journalists. The judge rejected that attempt, too,” Smith wrote. “The laser beam turned to Stars and Stripes on Jan. 15 when Sean Parnell posted on X four paragraphs announcing a ‘refocus’ of the newspaper. Parnell is Assistant to the Secretary of Defense/War (Public Affairs); my firing notice came from his office.”

“Since his ‘refocus’ post, I’ve been outspoken in my columns, media interviews, talks with national free press groups and communications with Congress about the Pentagon’s moves to take control of Stripes’ content,” Smith added. “This newspaper has a long history of commitment to the military community and to journalistic values. Please don’t let it be controlled by Pentagon brass.”

“My responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount.”

In January, the Pentagon announced plans to overhaul Stars and Stripes with the stated goal of moving its content “away from woke distractions that syphon morale”—without offering any examples of such content.

Weeks later, the Pentagon issued a memo declaring that the newspaper was “prohibited” from using “news stories, features, syndicated columns, comic strips and editorial cartoons from commercial news media.” The directive barred the paper from reprinting material from The Associated Press and Reuters.

Smith criticized the Pentagon directive as another blatant and “unacceptable” attempt to infringe on the newspaper’s editorial independence.

“What is happening with Stripes is within the broader context of the Pentagon attempting to restrict the mainstream media,” she wrote in an April column. “At first it was by closing off areas of the complex where journalists previously had been able to go unescorted, then it followed last fall with the demand for the press to sign an agreement essentially saying it would not use any information not authorized by the department. That’s when more than two dozen journalists from mainstream media turned in their press badges and walked out. They still cover the news.”

In a message to Stars and Stripes staff following her firing, Smith said she “knew it was risky to speak out.”

“But my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” she added.


OPINION

Inside the 160-year military tradition under attack from Trump's Pentagon


U.S. President Donald Trump and members of his administration attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 29, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

April 26, 2026
ALTERNET

Editor's Note: AlterNet Editor and Publisher Roxanne Cooper also worked at Stars & Stripes from 2000-2003.


While America is bogged down in this senseless war in Iran, Donald Trump and his reprehensible Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are once again attacking the welfare and morale of our troops.

For the past few months, this destructive duo have been taking aim at the iconic Stars and Stripes newspaper and its congressionally mandated editorial independence, by quite literally trying to kill the messenger.

It is unseemly, unnecessary and has been answered by journalists like myself and recently the newspaper’s ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, who was fired earlier this week for her stellar efforts defending the daily paper that has been covering and defending our troops since the Civil War.

I want to commend Smith for her good, important work, and command of her subject matter. She follows a rich tradition of notable ombudsmen at the paper through the years who have been charged with protecting the readers and ensuring the editorial staff delivers a comprehensive news and sports report to the troops free from command interference.

Any journalist worth his or her salt understands that Stars and Stripes might be the most important newspaper in the United States, and is certainly its most unique.

As I have explained before, Stars and Stripes is mandated by Congress to be an editorially independent newspaper that reports on and for the troops and their families overseas. It has endured through parts of three centuries, and through countless wars and administrations.

As I said in that piece:

Stripes has never been the military’s newspaper. It is the military’s hometown newspaper that reports on the military for the military, and is supplemented with the same stateside news they would expect from any other editorially independent newspaper.
The paper is a non-appropriated fund entity and receives approximately a third of its operating budget from the Pentagon with the rest coming from other sources such as advertising, single-copy sales, and online subscriptions.
Stripes reporters are with the troops during war and peace, and experts on their subject matter. There are countless examples over the years of the paper reporting on important issues that have resulted in positive change for its readers.

Most important: Stripes delivers news they can trust and free from interference from paranoid, self-serving, unscrupulous pirates like Hegseth and his small-minded, insecure toadies in the Pentagon.

People like Hegseth are exactly why this paper’s editorial independence is protected.


Many of you will know I was the managing editor of the newspaper between 1998 to 2009. You will know this because I am so proud of my editorial service to the newspaper that I use it in my tagline after every column I write. I worked at many other newspapers in many other capacities, but my time at Stars and Stripes was by far the highlight.

It was beyond my imagination as a sailor who read the paper in the 1970s, that I would go onto work at the iconic place 20 years later. These are things a troublemaking kid growing up in New Jersey never dreamed of.

Now Stars and Stripes is facing its most brutal attack in its long history from a group of known liars, who have always been terrified by the truth. Trump and Hegseth lie as they speak, so of course they feel a newspaper that prints the truth must be stopped.

It is not the first time this newspaper has been attacked by self-serving, ignorant politicians, or even Trump himself, who made an ill-advised run at shutting the paper down during his first disastrous term.

The paper has always enjoyed bipartisan congressional favor as a necessary resource for the troops and their families, who are painfully learning how little Trump thinks of them.

It’s time for Congress — Republicans and Democrats — to stand up for our troops by protecting this important paper that advocates for them.

I’ll never forget sitting down with the leaders of a visiting public affairs contingent from Macedonia (now North Macedonia) at Stars and Stripes’ then overseas headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, in 2005.

When I was finished with a windy explanation of the paper’s mission, the leader of the delegation was clearly blown away. “I can’t believe something like this can work,” he said. “We would never be allowed to do this in my country.”

I smiled at him and said three words: “Only in America.”

Just not Trump’s perverted notion of America apparently …

D. Earl Stephens is a United States Navy Veteran and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.



Hegseth Calls Iran War ‘Gift to the World’ Despite Economic Calamity, Food Shortages

Hegseth once again chided US allies for not getting involved in the war, which has created severe shortage of jet fuel and forced European airlines to enact mass flight cancelations.



US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2026.
(Photo by Annabelle Gordon / AFP via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Apr 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday once again suggested the international community should show gratitude for President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, which has led to a global oil supply shock and created the potential for food shortages in the coming months.

Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth defended the president’s decision to launch a war of choice with Iran that so far has cost US taxpayers an estimated $60 billion.

“It’s a bold and dangerous mission,” said Hegseth. “A gift to the world. Historic. Courtesy of a bold and historic president.”



Hegseth also chided US allies for not getting involved in the war, which Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched in late February without any consultation or coordination with Europe.

“America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand being an ally is not a one-way street,” he said. “We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe, and get in a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.”



In reality, there is little reason for the world to feel gratitude to the US and Israel for the war.

As reported by Barron’s on Friday, the war has created a global shortage of jet fuel that has led to airlines canceling flights, with Europe being particularly hard hit.

German airline Lufthansa, for instance, has announced it’s cutting 20,000 flights through October, and even US airlines such as Delta have been announcing cuts to save money thanks to the increase in jet fuel prices.

South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday that Asian nations are bracing for food shortages, as the Iran War has led to a shortage of fertilizer for crops during the planting season throughout much of the world.

In addition to citing the effects of the Iran War on global food supplies, the South China Morning Post pointed to scientists’ warnings of a “super El Niño” that could lead to lower than average rainfall.

“It is very concerning because this year is supposed to be a super El Niño, and you are getting into the planting season,” Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, founder of India-based financial research and advisory firm Commtrendz Research, told South China Morning Post. “This is going to be widespread across South and Southeast Asia. There will be dryness everywhere.”

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), warned on Tuesday that there is a real risk of a global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipments of fertilizer.

“The planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May,” the UN official explained. “So, if we don’t get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens.”

TMZ Confronts Hegseth Over Whether He’s on a ‘Power Trip’ When Ordering ‘Extreme Level of Violence’

“I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this,” said one journalist.


US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth takes questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon on April 24, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Apr 24, 2026
COMMON DREAM

At the latest press briefing at the Pentagon on Friday, in addition to issuing his latest threat to journalists who publish classified information obtained from sources, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth peppered his comments with the violent rhetoric that’s become commonplace in his public remarks.

The US military will “shoot and kill” if Iranian boats are found trying to disrupt passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed following the extension of a ceasefire this week, said Hegseth.

He added, “We will shoot to destroy, no hesitation, just like the drug boats in the Caribbean”—a reference to strikes that have killed at least 180 people the US has accused of trafficking drugs, in an operation that has been widely condemned as one of extrajudicial killings or murder.

“The War Department stands ready for what comes next, locked and loaded,” said the secretary, who has also denigrated what he refers to as “stupid” rules of engagement meant to protect civilians. “We’ll use up to and including lethal force if necessary.”

Amid Hegseth’s escalating efforts to control the media’s coverage of his department, including the Pentagon’s firing on Thursday of the ombudsman of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes and his demand that journalists agree to a policy prohibiting coverage that the department has not approved, an outlet that’s new to Capitol Hill made its way into the press briefing room Friday—and asked the top military official a question that hadn’t previously come up about the deadly attacks he’s ordered in recent months.

“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places,” said Jacob Wasserman of the celebrity news outlet TMZ, which has recently expanded its political coverage by opening an office in the nation’s capital. “And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip?”


Hegseth appeared perplexed before smirking and dismissing the query as “a very TMZ question.” He quickly denied that a “power trip” plays into his decisions to strike targets in places including Iran, where at least 3,375 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes, including at least 200 children; the Caribbean Ocean and Pacific Ocean, where the boat bombing campaign is continuing; and Ecuador, where US troops launched a joint campaign with the nation’s military last month, targeting suspected drug traffickers on land.

He said his “only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy,” before adding some more of the violent rhetoric Wasserman had alluded to about bringing “maximum violence to the enemy.”

Some scoffed at Wasserman’s question, but others, including Drop Site News journalist Julian Andreone, applauded the reporter for publicly suggesting and confronting Hegseth about the possibility that he enjoys ordering US troops to kill people in foreign countries, including many civilians, in operations that legal experts say violate international law.

“I’ve never seen the corporate media hacks even dream of having the courage to ask something like this, yet they continue to shove the fancy name of their organization in everybody’s faces while looking down their noses at TMZ,” said Andreone.

Wasserman’s colleague, Charlie Cotton, followed up with a question about whether Hegseth, who has claimed the Department of Defense has been renamed the Department of War—although congressional approval would be needed for such a change—would consider again rechristening the agency as the Department of Peace, “since that’s what we’re all after.”

The question prompted Hegseth, moments after demanding “maximum violence,” to remark that “the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize every single year is the United States military, because we are the guarantor of the safety and security, not just of our country, but of a lot of people in this world.”



TMZ’s first appearance in the briefing room and its arrival in Washington, DC come at a time when the corporate media’s coverage of the Iran war and other military operations has been compared to the drumbeating tone in the national press ahead of the George W. Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, and as some have called for more adversarial coverage of the White House and the political establishment.

The outlet, which is more accustomed to publishing celebrity gossip, spent recent weeks publishing photos of federal lawmakers vacationing during the partial government shutdown, with TMZ founder Harvey Levin interviewing one Transportation Security Administration worker who had been reporting to work for weeks without pay on the company’s weekday show, “TMZ Live.”

Levin urged viewers to who saw members of Congress on vacation during the shutdown to “take a picture and send it to us at TMZ. We will post that picture on our website, on our social media, and we will put it on our television shows. We want to show what they are doing at your expense.”



Levin told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month that TMZ’s presence in Washington will “sometimes be fun, sometimes intensely serious.”

The headline the outlet chose for its brief write-up of Wasserman’s question to Hegseth on Friday was, “TMZ DC to Pete Hegseth: Do You Get Off on Dropping Bombs???”

Journalist Krystal Ball of the online news show “Breaking Points” said that if Wasserman’s question to Hegseth was a “'TMZ question,’ I’m excited to see more of what TMZ will bring to the table.”

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