A lawsuit filed against the Pentagon seeks to reverse its takeover of Stars and Stripes, the news organization that provided independent news coverage for the U.S. military since 1861.
Federal regulations governing the publication ensured its ability to provide “a free flow of news and information” to its military readership “without news management or censorship,” Democracy Forward explained after filing the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Susan Dardarian and William Church v. U.S. Department of Defense challenges a DoD action and memo that, without notice or public hearing, repealed the historic regulations governing Stars and Stripes’ editorial freedom.
Dardarian and Church are Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who serve on the publication’s publisher’s advisory board.
“In a matter of a few months, the DoD has stripped Stars and Stripes of its long-standing editorial independence, ignoring its own regulations and the First Amendment,” said Dardarian, who retired last year as editor and senior vice president at the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Susan Dardarian
“It fired an ombudsman who challenged that effort, and now it seeks to directly control the news coverage of itself. In doing so, it is threatening the very existence of a treasured and respected journalistic resource for this country’s military community,” the suit claims.
According to the legal action filed June 3, Stars and Stripes operated independently until January when the Pentagon announced the publication’s focus would shift “‘from woke distractions that syphon morale’” and instead become “custom tailored to our warfighters. It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY.”
“In a matter of a few months, the DoD has stripped Stars and Stripes of its long-standing editorial independence, ignoring its own regulations and the First Amendment.”
A corresponding memo officially rescinded editorial independence and prohibited the purchase of commercial news and opinion content, including eliminating the republication of Associated Press and Washington Post articles.
The “arbitrary and capricious” action taken without public notice or hearing constitute a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, the lawsuit contends.
“In addition, DoD’s memorandum violates the First Amendment by restraining rights guaranteed to the press and denying readers access to Stripes’ content, including its editorial discretion to curate and assemble reporting and commentary from both its own journalism and selected commercial sources in a single publication tailored to the informational needs of military communities.”
The lawsuit urges the court to vacate the government’s actions “in order to preserve Stripes’ historical editorial independence at a time when the military community’s access to accurate, credible news information from a trusted source is particularly critical.”
William Church
Church, who currently serves as executive editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, said Stars and Stripes has an illustrious history of service to the military that should be preserved.
“The changes that have been forced upon Stripes are a disservice to a global military audience that has relied on this First Amendment-protected and Congressionally backed institution for generations,” he said.
The timing of the action comes amid the Trump administration’s larger attacks on the media, which have included defamation lawsuits against The New York Times and the BBC, threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of television networks and cuts in funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Many believe CBS’ recent cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was politically motivated because it came shortly after the program mocked a legal settlement between the network and President Donald Trump. And CBS’ parent company needed government approval of a big business deal.
The Stars and Stripes lawsuit is an effort to protect First Amendment rights, said Paul Wolfson, senior legal advisor at Democracy Forward.
“Unlawfully censoring ‘the soldiers’ paper’ is an insult to the dedicated members of the armed forces and an attack on the freedom of speech — a foundational Constitutional principle for which those brave servicepeople dedicate their lives.”