Aerial view of the Pentagon, home to the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters, in Arlington, Virginia, on May 31, 2026.
Daniel Slim | AFP | Getty Images
The editor-in-chief of the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes announced on Friday that he had been fired for insubordination, and a person familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that the Pentagon had sent a notice to the paper’s leadership informing him of his dismissal.
Eric Slavin said in a statement: “According to my notice, I am being terminated because I said in an interview with CBS that hypothetical news censorship of military personnel was a personal red line that I would not cross.”
The newspaper’s longtime publisher, Max Lederer, who was scheduled to retire at the end of September, was also fired, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.
In an email announcing his departure this week, Lederer wrote that it was clear the Pentagon had a new vision for the paper that differed from his own.
Lara Corte, who covered the Middle East for the newspaper, also said on social media on Friday that she too had been fired. She said that’s because she told CBS News she worked for Stars and Stripes, not the Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.
Stars and Stripes, which has published newspapers continuously since World War II and provides news to the U.S. military around the world, receives funding from the Department of Defense but has historically been editorially independent.
The Pentagon recently appointed an undersecretary of the military to the paper’s publisher. In a post about X, Pentagon Press Secretary Sean Parnell quoted from an open letter written by the undersecretary of the military.
“While we may never be able to digitally have the same impact on military personnel as newspapers had during World War II, when the media landscape was vastly different, I believe we can do more. I also believe we must do better for our most important constituency: the men and women who make up our military,” the letter said.
During his first administration, President Donald Trump reversed a Pentagon decision to shut down the paper all together.
Press freedom advocates have criticized sweeping policy changes under the Trump administration that restricted journalists’ access to the Pentagon, saying they stifled free speech.
