Defense Department says military newspaper Stars and Stripes must eliminate 'woke distractions'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 8:36 PM EST, January 15, 2026


The Pentagon said Thursday that it is changing the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes so it concentrates on “reporting for our warfighters” and no longer includes “woke distractions.”

That message, in a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s spokesman, is short on specifics and does not mention the news outlet’s legacy of independence from government and military leadership. It comes a day after The Washington Post reported that applicants for jobs at Stars and Stripes were being asked what they would do to support President Donald Trump’s policies.

Stars and Stripes traces its lineage to the Civil War and has reported news about the military either in its newspaper or online steadily since World War II, largely to an audience of service members stationed overseas. Roughly half of its budget comes from the Pentagon and its staff members are considered Defense Department employees.

The outlet’s mission statement emphasizes that it is “editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command” and that it is unique among news organizations tied to the Defense Department in being “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/stars-stripes-pentagon-trump-hegseth-3bcc613b19a92587b16ce5d9adddffec

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Military must become UnWoke ... isn't that sleeping? /nt

[lonely bird]

2. Hegseth is too stupid to know what woke means

Of course, neither does any Republican.

[Buns_of_Fire]

3. Secretary Shitfaced wants to see more stories about the exploits

of manly-men like him. WHITE manly-men, naturally. I think what he wants is basically a comic book.

[orangecrush]

4. Renamed "Hammer and Sickle"

[Clouds Passing]

5. Stay asleep in your drug and alcohol induced stupors

[Aristus]

6. I read The Stars And Stripes every day for four years. Nothing in it was 'woke'.

It wasn't stridently reactionary, or anything the Nazis might approve of. But maybe that's the problem for the Pentagon goons. They want Der Volkischer Beobachter.

[Sane1]

7. Whiskey Pete Sez......

Clean it Up!!!!!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

8. When little boys play Army

they aren't kidding around next they want to issue boxer shorts with tigers on them or some such thing. At least boxers is what they gave in the 60's.

[Martin68]

9. I've read copies of The Stars and Stripes and they sounded rather conservative to me...

[SeattleVet]

10. The S&S has always been independent, and tended towards very balanced reporting.

It serves not only the service members, but also their families, civilian contractors, and even the locals that work on the bases.

It was always an independent source of unbiased news that we depended on when we were serving outside the country, with limited English-language news sources available (at the time). We had Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, and we knew how they were biased, so we used to listen to the AFRTS news, then tune in Radio Moscow for their take on the news, and figure that the actual truth was somewhere in the middle of those two.

That's probably what scares Kegsbreath the most…the independence and lack of bias is toxic to him. Can't have actual news getting into the hands of the people that are supposed to be defending democracy around the world.