Pentagon Dismisses Ombudsman Over Editorial Independence Concerns at Stars and Stripes

The Pentagon has dismissed Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman tasked with safeguarding the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes, its military publication.

“Apparently the Pentagon also doesn’t want you to hear from me anymore about threats to the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes. They fired me,” Smith stated in an op-ed published Thursday.

In her final column, titled “The Pentagon is trying to silence me,” she revealed that she was informed on Thursday her last day would be April 28, adhering to a mandatory five-day notice period.

No explanation accompanied her abrupt termination, she noted, although Pentagon officials indicated, “This action is not grievable.”

“No one should be surprised that they’re kicking out the one person charged by Congress with protecting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence,” Smith asserted. “For nearly a year, Pentagon leadership has placed more and more restrictions on the mainstream media.”

The role of the Stars and Stripes ombudsman was established by Congress in 1991 following efforts by military personnel to suppress unfavorable reporting during the Iran-Contra affair, a significant political scandal of the 1980s involving arms trafficking.

Ombudsmen are mandated to report annually to lawmakers regarding their oversight activities.

“As required, I have told the House and Senate Armed Services committees in recent months of my great and growing concern about attempted control of the newspaper by the Pentagon,” Smith, who assumed her role in 2023, wrote.

On Friday evening, she appeared on CNN to discuss her dismissal.

“I think that there's a very real threat to their editorial independence. I think the Pentagon is taking steps to try to control the message through various ways, to have more public affairs content, for example, to remove the requirement that the publisher is a civilian, so they could put, you know, perhaps a military person in there,” she explained.

Smith also criticized Hegseth’s overt promotion of Christianity within the Pentagon. “It seems to me that the Bible has no place in the running of the Pentagon. The troops are made up of people of many different faiths, many different religions, some no religion. So to focus on only one, I think, is very inappropriate,” she remarked.

The Pentagon has yet to respond to inquiries regarding Smith’s termination.

Stars and Stripes receives funding from the Department of Defense but is expected to uphold editorial independence. However, recent months have seen significant changes, including directives from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell aimed at “refocusing its content away from woke distractions that siphon morale.”

This shift prompted Smith to become increasingly vocal in her columns and media appearances.

In March, she criticized a directive prohibiting “news stories, features, syndicated columns, comic strips and editorial cartoons from commercial news media” in Stars and Stripes editions. “Pete Hegseth doesn’t want you to see cartoons in this newspaper anymore,” Smith wrote.