Under the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon has tried more than once to impose restrictions on the free press, and so far, those efforts have failed in court. There’s one news outlet, however, where the Defense Department has had more success.

Two months ago, the Pentagon fired Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman for Stars and Stripes, a legendary newspaper that covers the U.S. armed forces. Though the outlet has traditionally operated independently, it’s partly funded by the Defense Department, which made it possible for the Pentagon to oust Smith.

As has been the case with many recent Defense Department firings, Smith was given no reason for her dismissal.

Two months later, however, she decided to fight back in court. The Washington Post reported:

Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman for military newspaper Stars and Stripes who was fired in April by the Pentagon, sued the agency on Thursday, alleging that her dismissal was retaliatory and violated her First Amendment rights.

In a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, Smith said that she was fired 10 days after writing an April 8 opinion column criticizing Pentagon officials for canceling syndicated comics in the paper. Her three-year term as ombudsman — a congressionally mandated role — was not set to expire until December 2026, the lawsuit said.

“I’m charging that my First Amendment rights were violated for speaking out in the columns that I’ve written since Jan. 15, which were critical of what I saw as the Pentagon’s attempts to control the editorial content of Stars and Stripes,” Smith told the Post.

Her attorney went on to say that the lawsuit is in response to “the government’s retaliation against her over the exercise of clearly definable First Amendment rights.”

As part of the litigation, Smith and her lawyer are seeking an injunction to restore the former ombudsman to her position.

Time will tell what becomes of the litigation as the process advances — for now, neither the Pentagon nor the newspaper have commented on the case — but it’s important to emphasize for context that the role of ombudsman at Stars and Stripes was created by Congress for a reason: The person in this job is specifically tasked with ensuring the newspaper’s editorial independence.

Hegseth’s Pentagon fired her anyway, not because Smith failed to do her job, but because she did her job in ways the Republican administration found inconvenient.

As many service members and veterans likely know, Stars and Stripes is a military newspaper with a generations-old pedigree. It has long described itself as the “U.S. military’s independent news source.”

The word “independent” was — and remains — key. As it covers the military, Stars and Stripes has long enjoyed the same kind of editorial freedom that civilian newspapers have, even if that means publishing reports the Pentagon doesn’t always like.

To ensure it publishes only news reports in line with the administration’s preferred messages, Trump appointees at the DOD announced in January that they would commandeer the newspaper. By gutting Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence, the Pentagon could “refocus its content away from woke distractions,” as one of Hegseth’s top deputies put it at the time.

The Washington Post reported soon after that those seeking open positions at Stars and Stripes were asked how they would advance Trump’s “policy priorities” in the role.

In March, the newspaper’s ombudsman spoke out against the moves, explaining that the administration’s actions were to “the detriment of the troops who rely on the newspaper for complete coverage and continued accurate coverage that is not propaganda.”

Since propaganda is apparently the goal, Smith was ousted a month later.

“I knew it was risky to speak out, but my responsibility to Stripes and the First Amendment was paramount,” Smith told The New York Times after her firing in April. The troops, she added, “deserve to have the unfiltered news, not what the Defense Department wants them to hear.”

If only Hegseth and his team agreed.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Ousted Stars and Stripes ombudsman files key lawsuit against Hegseth’s Pentagon appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.