Stars and Stripes, the independent news outlet that’s run out of the Pentagon, hasn’t completely fallen under President Donald Trump’s authoritarian control — yet.
That’s according to Jacqueline Smith, the military-focused outlet’s ombudsman — essentially, an internal monitor of its journalistic integrity. On Tuesday, she cited some of the Trump administration’s efforts to impose its political will on Stars and Stripes in an op-ed headlined “Risks and challenges of getting news of the war to Stripes’ readers.” Using the Iran war as a backdrop, she maintained that her outlet has thus far been able to resist the pressure.
Stars and Stripes has had its journalistic independence codified by law and upheld in court, and the administration’s attempts to wield control come amid its broader assault on the free press.
In the op-ed, Smith listed numerous examples of Stars and Stripes journalists reporting on the Iran conflict — including from the Middle East — to directly rebuke a social media post made by scandal-plagued Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell earlier this year, when he vowed to “refocus” the outlet’s content on “warfighting” and away from what he called “woke distractions.”
After citing her outlet’s coverage of the Iran war, she asked: “Does this sound like Stripes is not reporting on ‘warfighting?’” Smith wrote that the Trump administration’s attempt to “refocus” content at Stars and Stripes — an effort she previously decried — “would be antithetical to Stripes’ Congressionally authorized purpose to remain editorially independent.” She also said she wanted to emphasize her outlet’s ongoing war coverage to prove that it has not avoided such reporting, particularly after some readers have canceled their subscriptions over concerns about the Pentagon’s influence. In response to one reader who had said they worried about the department “controlling and censoring content,” Smith gave a somewhat ominous rebuttal: “I want to tell you that no ‘controlling and censoring’ by the Pentagon has happened — yet.”
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
