The Pentagon on Friday issued separation notices to three Stars and Stripes employees: editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, publisher Max D. Lederer Jr., and reporter Lara Korte. The Pentagon cited insubordination. Slavin and Korte had gone on CBS Sunday Morning to talk about the Pentagon's push to reshape the paper's editorial direction. Pentagon leadership ordered Lederer to fire them, then fired him for refusing. Stars and Stripes has covered every major U.S. military conflict since 1861. Slavin and Lederer have a five-day appeal window that expires this week.

1. The Pentagon: This Is a Government Paper (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth)

Half the budget is taxpayer money. Hegseth says that earns oversight.

Public insubordination on national TV is fireable. The DOD's formal statement was blunt: "Public insubordination and the active undermining of departmental directives on public airwaves are incompatible with continued service within the Department of Defense." White House adviser Stephen Miller said that "if anybody was fired, it was for just cause."

Warfighter coverage should replace the "woke distractions." Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in January 2026 the paper would be "custom tailored to our warfighters" — focused on "warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability and ALL THINGS MILITARY" — dropping "repurposed DC gossip columns." Stars and Stripes gets roughly half its $29 million annual budget from taxpayers. Navy Capt. William Urban, the new military deputy, said the paper could "do better" for service members.

2. But the Fired Staff: The Firing Proves Their Point (Editor Erik Slavin, Publisher Max Lederer)

They were fired for saying censorship is a red line. They say that response is the censorship.

The firing is the censorship. The CBS interview triggered the firing: Slavin had told the network that Pentagon censorship of military news would be a red line. After the firing he said: "I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department's own policies." Korte put it plainly: "I'm working for Stars and Stripes. Not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker."

Editorial independence here is a legal requirement, not just tradition. The 1994 regulations — 32 CFR § 246 — required a civilian editor-in-chief and kept editorial decisions out of DoD hands. Congress and the GAO documented systemic censorship at Stars and Stripes in the early 1990s. The 1994 regulations were written to stop it. National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. called the firings "another brazen attempt by the Pentagon to dictate coverage of the military."

3. Congress: The January Removal May Have Broken Federal Law (Sen. Ruben Gallego, Rep. Jamie Raskin)

The Trump DOD stripped Stars and Stripes' independence regulations in January, claiming APA rulemaking wasn't required. Critics and a federal lawsuit say it was.

Stripping those protections required its own APA rulemaking process, critics argue. The Biden DOD proposed strengthening Stars and Stripes' independence regulations in 2024 and collected public comments. The Trump DOD reviewed those comments and did the opposite. In January 2026, it removed the independence regulations entirely, arguing APA rulemaking wasn't required because the rules imposed no public burden. Critics and the June 2026 federal lawsuit argue the removal itself required its own notice-and-comment process. Senators Ruben Gallego, Elizabeth Warren, Jeanne Shaheen, and Richard Blumenthal have sent oversight letters to Hegseth. Rep. Jamie Raskin and colleagues wrote demanding the paper remain "free and independent."

First Amendment protections are "unnecessary" for this paper, the Pentagon said. In written responses to congressional oversight letters, the Pentagon called First Amendment protections for Stars and Stripes "unnecessary principally" and redefined the paper's mission as content "in support of good order and discipline." A federal lawsuit filed in June 2026 is challenging whether the January removal of those regulations was itself lawful.

Where This Lands

Hegseth's position is that taxpayer-funded press must answer to the government, and that Slavin committed public insubordination by telling CBS that Pentagon censorship would cross a line. The fired staff say the firing is the evidence they were right to draw that line: Stars and Stripes' independence protections exist because this conflict played out before, in documented form, in the early 1990s. The legal question is whether the Pentagon followed its own rules when it stripped those protections in January — and a federal court is now deciding. The appeal window for Slavin and Lederer closes this week. In 2020, a bipartisan Congress blocked the first Trump administration's attempt to shut the paper down entirely. So far, every lawmaker pushing back in 2026 is a Democrat.

Sources