Pete Hegseth has made clear his determination to control press coverage of his actions. He decided which media would get space in the press rooms of the Pentagon, kicking out some established journalists to make room for right-wing journalists. He tried to monitor all information coming from the Pentagon.

This week, he fired the leadership of the military’s “Stars and Stripes,” which has always enjoyed editorial independence. Hegseth can’t tolerate that. He wants total control.

Although he was a talking head on FOX, he has no respect for freedom of the press.

The New York Times reported:

The Defense Department on Friday fired the publisher and the editor in chief of Stars and Stripes, a government-funded news outlet that reports on the U.S. military, according to a senior Pentagon official and the dismissed journalists.

The firings raised questions about the Pentagon’s willingness to ensure the editorial integrity of the publication that has reported extensively on difficulties faced by military communities as the war in Iran has dragged on. The terminations came about 10 days after Stars and Stripes journalists reported on hardships that Navy sailors were facing on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier whose deployment was extended to nine months amid the war.

On Friday, the Pentagon sent termination notices to Erik Slavin, the editor in chief, and Max Lederer, the publisher, who had announced his retirement earlier this week, citing conflict with the Pentagon leadership on the paper’s direction. Lara Korte, a Middle East correspondent at the news outlet, was also fired on Friday, according to the official and a post she made on social media.

The Defense Department declined to comment. Capt. William Urban, the military deputy to the publisher who was brought to the role earlier this month, said in a letter published on Friday that his priority was to ensure “the highest quality of editorially independent reporting” at Stars and Stripes. Captain Urban’s previous role was as a senior spokesman for the Pentagon….

Why it matters:

“Stars and Stripes” is supposed to be an independent news organization for the military, not a propaganda mouthpiece for the Pentagon.

The ouster of the leadership of “Stars and Stripes” is a plain effort to muzzle the publication and turn it into a lapdog for Pete Hegseth.

This is a brief overview of how “Stars and Stripes” won its editorial independence, as told by blogger TCinLA:

In 1944, General George S. Patton Jr. was very upset with a 22-year old Sergeant who drew cartoons for “Stars and Stripes”. The Sergeant was Bill Mauldin, creator of two cartoon characters, Willie and Joe, who were considered to be the voice of American GIs on the front lines. Willie and Joe were always tired, needed a shave, were wearing the filthy fatigues they lived in on the front lines in Italy, and viewed the U.S. Army as a more threatening personal enemy than the Wehrmacht. The GIs agreed with everything they said. By 1945, the war in Europe was a slog through the coldest European winter in a century. In March 1945, General Patton summoned Mauldin to his Luxembourg headquarters, where over 45 minutes he accused Sgt. Mauldin of inciting mutiny and destroying military discipline through his unkempt character portrayals. Mauldin defended his work as a “safety valve” for combat infantrymen, resulting in a tense 45-minute standoff that ended in a stalemate.

It took an intervention by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower to protect Mauldin and preserve the editorial independence of “Stars and Stripes,” preventing Patton from banning the paper or jailing the cartoonist. Eisenhower fiercely believed that “Stars and Stripes” should belong entirely to the front-line troops, famously declaring: “This newspaper should be the equivalent of a soldier’s hometown newspaper, with no censorship of its contents, other than for security.” Ike recognized that Willie and Joe served as a vital, non-destructive psychological safety valve. He knew that letting G.I.s laugh at their miserable conditions and blow off steam about overbearing officers actually preserved army morale. Too bad the current dildo running the Pentagon and his short-fingered thin-skinned felonious boss are too fucking stupid to understand that Eisenhower was smarter than all ten of them combined.

Originally when it was created by Congress in 1942, Start and Stripes occupied a unique place in American journalism: funded by the government, read by the military, but mandated by law to report the news independently, without editorial interference. This was because the America that could actually win wars believed US servicemen deserved real news, not Pentagon horseshit. (That happens to still be the law, should any congressional moron care to see it enforced.)

Cartoonist Bill Mauldin won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in “Stars and Stripes.”

You should read the full post by TCinLA, which reports on the recent episodes of censorship by the Trump administration, some of which have succeeded, others that have not.