Some information organizations have developed a set of values to information their reporting journalistic values.
Most are simply written down someplace. Only a few inscribe them on their partitions.
The 5 values of Stars and Stripes, the unbiased newspaper and information supply serving our army communities, could be discovered on a big mural, proudly displayed at Camp Humphreys in South Korea.
The phrases aren’t delicate: Credibility. Impartiality. Fact-telling. Balanced. Accountable. They aren’t advertising and marketing slogans. They’re a compact between Stars and Stripes and its readers, lots of whom are removed from house and infrequently in hurt’s manner.
However a recent edict, disclosed by a spokesman for Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, might steer Stars and Stripes away from these core values. In a social media put up, the spokesman stated the Pentagon intends to “refocus” its reporting towards content material “customized tailor-made to our warfighters,” equivalent to weapon methods and lethality.
The identical assertion stated Pentagon-produced content material would quickly fill 50 % of its pages, changing content material now produced by civilian journalists and edited and directed by civilian editors who’re unbiased of the army chain-of-command.
Such a change would upend the proud mission and legacy of Stars and Stripes, which is now, and may stay, distinctly completely different from public relations content material produced by uniformed public affairs groups.
As a First Modification enterprise, Stars and Stripes typically is the one manner these deployed in distant areas can keep related with information from house, an important, bodily connection for these in hurt’s manner. Its independence permits it to pursue problems with concern to the well being, security and well-being of service members and their households.
Such reporting, to be efficient, requires belief. In that vein, in August 2025, Stars and Stripes, working with the Center for Integrity in News Reporting, took a step that needs to be a job mannequin for each information group: It printed an announcement of its core values, declaring its devotion to credibility and impartiality.
Final fall, once I was in Tokyo for a ceremony marking the eightieth anniversary of the launch of the Pacific version of Stars and Stripes, one of many audio system recalled the phrases of one in all our nation’s biggest warfighters about this venerable information group.
“The Stars and Stripes is the troopers’ paper. It have to be saved freed from censorship or propaganda. Its objective is to inform the reality — good or dangerous — to the women and men who serve.”
That warfighter was Normal of the Military Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Pressure in Europe and, later, the thirty fourth president of the USA.
Eisenhower’s phrases clarify why generations of commanders tolerated usually uncomfortable tales in Stars and Stripes: A paper that service members belief does extra for cohesion and legitimacy than one which reads like a propaganda platform for authorised narratives.
Stars and Stripes’ values assertion places it plainly: “Credibility is the best asset of any information medium,” and impartiality is its “biggest supply of credibility.” It describes truth-telling because the core mission, accountability as a self-discipline, and it emphasizes the strict separation between information and opinion.
These ideas are neither ideological nor hostile to the army. They’re the foundational ideas of a free press, and they’re particularly vital when the viewers is made up of people that swear an oath to uphold the Structure.
The People who serve in our armed forces deserve greater than info that flatters authority.
They deserve journalism that respects them sufficient to inform the reality.
That mural in South Korea has it proper. Credibility. Impartiality. Fact-telling. Balanced. Accountable.
We must always deal with these phrases as a promise saved and a dedication upheld.
This was printed earlier by the Free Speech Middle at Center Tennessee State College.
