Pentagon PR Official Takes Over Stars and Stripes Months After Editor, Publisher Kicked Out

The Pentagon has named one of its own public affairs officials to run the publication Stars and Stripes, and he will keep his Pentagon job while doing it. This places a single official inside both the office that shapes the military’s message, and the newsroom charged with covering it independently.

Christian Devine, an executive director and principal adviser in the Pentagon’s public affairs office, was appointed acting publisher by chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, Stars and Stripes reported on Tuesday.

Devine will split his time between the two roles until a permanent publisher is hired, according to Navy Capt. Bill Urban, the paper’s military deputy to the publisher.

The Pentagon and Stars and Stripes did not immediately respond to Military.com’s requests for comment on Devine’s authority over editorial and personnel decisions, or whether safeguards will separate his two roles.

First Came the Firings

The appointment comes less than two months after the Pentagon dismissed editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte for what it called insubordination following a CBS interview about the department’s purported pressure on the publication.

They then fired publisher Max Lederer Jr., who according to court records had declined a directive to deliver their termination notices.

Months earlier, the department fired the ombudsman whose job was to protect the paper’s editorial independence.

Devine, who spent years in military public affairs—much of it with the Marine Corps—told Stars and Stripes in a statement that he has “a lot to learn” about being a publisher, but is “honored to help and contribute to the Stripes mission.”

He said he is committed to preserving the paper’s editorial independence, Devine added, and is “confident that Stripes can modernize its platform to prioritize original reporting.”

‘A Hollow Promise’

Devine arrives at a paper whose independence is being tested in federal court.

On Oct. 6, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta declined to reinstate Jacqueline Smith, the fired ombudsman, but allowed her retaliation lawsuit to continue.

Mehta wrote that if the usual rules governing government employees’ speech were strictly applied, First Amendment protection could be “a hollow promise for Stars and Stripes journalists.”

Smith’s lawsuit claims she was fired over an April 8 column in which she criticized a department policy barring the paper from running comic strips.

The judge found that she wrote the column as part of her official duties as the paper’s independence watchdog, which doomed her bid for immediate reinstatement, simultaneously as he let the case proceed.

The department has until Oct. 20 to respond to her suit. The ruling came one week before Devine’s appointment.

The Rules Changed, Then the People Did

For decades, federal regulations protected the paper.

The Pentagon repealed that rule Jan. 15, the same day Parnell announced an overhaul to steer the paper away from what he called “woke distractions.”

A replacement policy issued many months later on Aug. 21, or the day of the firings, reiterated editorial independence while adding content rules.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said in May that the department’s own responses to her office revealed interference with the paper’s mission that threatens censorship.

The U.S. Senate’s version of next year’s defense bill would require future publishers to be civilians with independent news experience. That provision has not become law.

Devine serves until a permanent publisher is hired. No timeline has been announced.