According to USA Today, in an unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War.
In the memo, the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) is ordered to present a plan that “dissolves the Stars and Stripes” by Sept. 15 – including a “specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”
“The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo’s author. Haverstick Jr is director of Defense Media Activity (DMA), based at Fort Meade, Maryland, according to The Guardian.
If the White House wants damage control on these multiple reports about the president disparaging the military, maybe today would be a good day to hit pause on his inexplicable order to kill the beloved, storied military newspaper Stars and Stripes.September 4, 2020
On the Pentagon website, DMA is described as “a mass media and education organization that creates and distributes Department of Defense content across a variety of platforms to audiences around the world.”
As Politico says, this move is the “latest salvo” by the Pentagon, which tried earlier this year to cut the $15.5 million in funding from the Defense Department’s budget. And it is also in line with President Donald Trump’s dislike of the media and journalists.
Stars and Stripes can trace its origins to Bloomfield, Missouri, when in November 1861, troops under the future president Ulysses S Grant took over the printing press of a Confederate sympathizer.
Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper started during the Civil War that's informed and spoken for American troops for decades, will cease print and online publication by the last day of September as the Defense Department moved to zero-out its budget. September 4, 2020
Stars and Stripes has traditionally provided news free of government censorship while sometimes being critical of military and civilian commanders. Most importantly – it is delivered daily to troops around the world, even on the front lines.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper this week, signed by 15 senators – including Republicans and Democrats – they urged him to reinstate the funds in the budget for the newspaper. “Stars and Stripes is an essential part of our nations freedom of the press that serves the very population charged with defending that freedom,” the senators said in the letter.
The Senators also warned Esper that the department is legally prohibited from canceling a budget program while a temporary continuing resolution funding the federal government is in effect.
Stars and Stripes ombudsman, Ernie Gates, told The Associated Press on Friday that shutting the paper down “would be fatal interference and permanent censorship of a unique First Amendment organization that has served U.S. troops reliably for generations.”
