As part of its hunt for money that can be freed up to fund new weapons and warfighting technologies, the Pentagon is proposing to eliminate the $7 million subsidy to Stars and Stripes, an independent newspaper for U.S. troops that is owned and operated by the Department of Defense.
At a Monday briefing on the Pentagon’s FY 2021 budget request, acting Comptroller Elaine McCusker confirmed that the venerable newspaper, first published during the Civil War, had fallen victim to Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s defense-wide review, which is designed to eliminate low-priority programs to make up for the lack of an increase in this year’s flat $705 billion budget plan.
“We have essentially decided that, you know, kind of coming into the modern age that newspaper is probably not the best way that we communicate any longer,” McCusker said.
The announcement drew an immediate push-back from the paper’s ombudsman.
“Stars and Stripes’ mission is not to communicate the DoD or command message, but to be an independent, First Amendment publication that serves the troops — especially deployed troops,” tweeted Ernie Gates. “So her ‘we communicate’ misses the mission.”
The paper is online but publishes print editions overseas, where increasingly troops are not able to use mobile devices for security reasons.
“DOD waging war on its own media — cuts $$ for the military’s independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, first published in 1861,” tweeted Associated Press Pentagon reporter Lolita Baldor, after yesterday’s budget briefing.
Publisher Max Lederer says he only learned Monday that the Pentagon proposed to cut operating and maintenance funds for Stars and Stripes, roughly $7 million and about 35% of Stripes’s annual budget, according to the independent paper.
Read more from our senior writer on defense and national security in today’s edition of Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense.
