The Pentagon has fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes for insubordination, extending the Trump administration’s confrontation with dissent to a military newspaper with a long history of editorial independence and significant taxpayer funding.
Erik Slavin was dismissed on Friday alongside the newspaper’s publisher and its Middle East reporter, in the latest action by the defence department against employees accused of expressing views that conflict with the Trump administration.
Slavin said he received a separation notice from the Pentagon citing insubordination over an interview with CBS News about the publication. According to Slavin, the notice said he was being fired for stating that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a personal red line.
“The Pentagon’s public affairs office has charged me with insubordination,” Slavin said. He added that he stood by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and the department’s own policies.
The newspaper’s editorial staff are defence department employees, but Stars and Stripes has traditionally maintained editorial independence. Under defence secretary Pete Hegseth, however, the publication has increasingly become a target of criticism over what the administration describes as “woke” content.
Hegseth has already purged two dozen generals and admirals as part of an effort to remove what he describes as the military’s “woke culture”. Last year, he abruptly summoned generals and admirals and demanded stronger adherence to his “warrior ethos”, telling those who disagreed that they should resign.
The Pentagon’s scrutiny of Stars and Stripes intensified in January, when chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the department was “returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters”. He said the publication would “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale”.
The statement raised concerns over the newspaper’s editorial independence. In March, a Pentagon memorandum followed, outlining greater oversight of the publication, which has been published continuously since the second world war and reaches about 1.4mn readers daily, according to the newspaper.
The latest dismissals follow coverage that has already caused political controversy. Earlier this month, Stars and Stripes was among military outlets reporting on deteriorating conditions for troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, triggering a firestorm involving Hegseth and President Donald Trump.
Slavin said publisher Max Lederer, who announced on Thursday that he was stepping down, also received a separation notice on Friday. The Pentagon’s reason for Lederer’s dismissal was not clear.
The newspaper’s Middle East reporter, Lara Korte, also said she had been fired for insubordination over her participation in the CBS segment. Korte said she had told a CBS reporter that she worked for Stars and Stripes, “not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policy maker”.
“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,” she said on X.
The dismissals come amid a broader confrontation between the Trump administration and the press. Hegseth has curtailed media access to the Pentagon, while Trump has sued several media organisations over their coverage of him. Last month, the justice department issued and then revoked subpoenas sent to several New York Times reporters over a story concerning the security of the new Air Force One jet gifted to Trump by Qatar.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the Stars and Stripes dismissals, although a defence official confirmed that “the separation notices are real”.
The firings now place renewed attention on the balance between military oversight and editorial independence at a publication whose stated mission is to report for service members. For its journalists, the dispute centres on whether that independence can survive when the newspaper’s editorial staff remain employees of the defence department.
