Pentagon fires publisher and editor of US military news outlet Stars and Stripes

Max Lederer and Erik Slavin receive termination notices after publication reported on crew conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln

The Pentagon has fired the publisher and the editor of Stars and Stripes, the US military news outlet that has clashed with the Trump administration and armed forces brass over its partly taxpayer-funded reporting.

Publisher Max Lederer and editor Erik Slavin received termination notices, CBS News reported on Friday. The cause cited was insubordination, and they have been given five days to appeal against their dismissals.

Slavin later told the Associated Press that his firing for insubordination was “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line”.

He also said that he stood by the principle “that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent”.

Meanwhile, reporter Lara Korte wrote on X that she had been fired for insubordination, too, for previously telling CBS that her work for Stars and Stripes did not mean she worked for “the Pentagon … any administration … [or] any policy maker”.

“I consider it a great privilege to live alongside members of the military and share their stories,” Korte also wrote. “It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press.

Leder’s, Slavin’s and Korte’s dismissals came days after the publication reported on crew conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that have caused concern among veteran and military health experts.

Pentagon officials had reportedly discussed firing Lederer ahead of his scheduled retirement in September. He has served as publisher of the military daily for 19 years.

“It has become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of value and mission of the Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction of the leadership of the Department of Defense,” Lederer said in a letter to staff, which was posted on X.

The outlet’s reporting on the Lincoln, which is heading for port in San Diego after an extended deployment in the Middle East as part of the war in Iran that the Trump administration started in February alongside Israel, was published on 12 August, on the same day as similar reporting in the Navy Times.

Donald Trump subsequently dismissed concerns about conditions on Lincoln in part, with the president saying the crew’s deployment had been “not nearly long enough”.

The Trump-led Pentagon has been warring with the press that covers it, restricting access and demanding that journalists not seek confidential sources.

At one point, the Trump administration’s Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, posted on X a pledge to bring Stars and Stripes “into the 21st century”.

“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,” Parnell also said, invoking a term used by the political right to deride progressive social initiatives.

Slavin hinted at tensions with the military brass in July when he told CBS News that the “foxhole” he would be willing to die in would be over editorial independence from the Pentagon, which provides about 65% of Stars and Stripes’ funding.

“We need to be able to provide independent news to service members,” he said to the network. “If we can’t do that, if we were turned into something other than that, if we were public relations? Yeah, that’s the foxhole.”

Korte in that CBS story also said she was “here to cover the military community”.

“I’m working for Stars and Stripes – not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker,” she said.

Stars and Stripes’ Jacqueline Smith, an ombudsman, or public-facing editor, for the publication, was fired in January after writing a story critical of the Pentagon press restrictions sought by the Trump administration. Smith later sued the Pentagon, alleging that her termination was retaliatory.

The publication reaches about 1.4 million readers daily online and via an overseas print edition. It was first published during the US civil war, which began in 1861.

Stars and Stripes became a daily publication during the first world war on the orders of Gen John Pershing.