Pentagon officials are reportedly considering firing the longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes before he can retire this fall.
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According to a Wednesday report by CBS News, Max Lederer announced to his colleagues that he plans to retire on September 30 after 19 years as the publisher of Stars and Stripes. Lederer cited fundamental differences with the Trump administration for his retirement.
However, Pentagon officials have discussed firing Lederer before his planned retirement as part of an effort to overhaul the military news outlet, which is partly funded by American taxpayers.
The outlet, which gets about 65 percent of its funding through the Defense Department, has long prided itself on editorial independence from the Pentagon’s public affairs operation.
Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin has also spoken publicly about his disagreements with Pentagon leadership. Lederer, in a Tuesday note to staff obtained by CBS News, wrote that his “philosophy of leadership” and his “understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes” differ in “fundamental ways” from the direction the department’s leadership wants for the organization.
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Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has publicly pushed to remake the outlet. He posted in January about “bringing Stars and Stripes into the 21st century.”
Parnell wrote that the department would “modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.”
The outlet would “focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY,” Parnell added. He said there would be “no more repurposed DC gossip columns” and “no more Associated Press reprints.” CBS News reported that the outlet no longer uses wire services such as Reuters or the AP.
An average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day, mostly online, according to CBS News. However, readership has declined from its peaks during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, CBS News noted. Print delivery slid from about 7 million annual copies in 2019 to 6.2 million in 2024, according to CBS News.
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