From the Pentagon to public schools, reporters connect policy decisions to people’s lives

In our cover story this month, Taayoo Murray ... reveals how [education] statistics alone fall short — and that it’s critical for newsrooms to demonstrate the impact on the nation’s children, their families and their communities — to connect the dots between public policy and people.”

Gretchen A. Peck, editor-in-chief, E&P Magazine

As we prepared E&P’s September issue for press, word came that the Pentagon had fired the publisher, editor and a reporter who covers the Middle East, at Stars and Stripes. The prior week, Publisher Max D. Lederer Jr. announced his retirement from the 164-year-old news outlet. He’d invested more than 30 years in service to the news organization’s mission.

You may recall that Bob Miller profiled Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Stripes Museum in E&P’s July issue. Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin told Miller, “Independence is fundamental to our credibility, to our purpose, to our mission, and it has been for many decades. It was Dwight Eisenhower who laid that down and said, ‘This is the soldier’s paper, don’t interfere.’”

Lara Korte, who reported on the Middle East — an evergreen interest of the U.S. military and military families — was also fired. On social media, Korte stated, in part: “Today, I was informed that the Department of Defense is firing me for insubordination after I told a CBS reporter that I work for Stars and Stripes — not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policy maker.” In her thread, she linked to her recent reporting on Navy families who’d been evacuated from Bahrain six months prior and have navigated temporary housing conditions and an uncertain future since.

The same day the Pentagon fired Lederer, Slavin and Korte, the newly appointed military deputy to the publisher of Stars and Stripes, Capt. William Urban, published an open letter, vowing “the highest quality of editorially independent reporting.” Capt. Urban spent more than 20 years in comms and public relations roles for the U.S. Navy and Defense Department.

News of the Pentagon’s action made quick headlines. All the major outlets picked up on it, as I’d expect they would. For this is a story all Americans should know. There is the obvious lede: Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence is actively under attack, and the fear is that the publication will morph into a sycophantic, propaganda arm for the Trump administration.  

As you go deeper into the story, you learn how much Stars and Stripes means to its audience who are, primarily, members of the military and their families. They trust it to deliver on a promise of practical, earnest information, as well as a sense of community and connection, particularly meaningful during deployments. Undermining that trust serves no one but politicians.

The American people should also keep watch on the U.S. education system. In our cover story this month, Taayoo Murray learns of some troubling data points related to disparity in education funding, school closures and declining enrollment. Speaking with reporters who cover education from national and local perspectives, Murray reveals how the statistics alone fall short — and that it’s critical for newsrooms to demonstrate the impact on the nation’s children, their families and their communities — to connect the dots between public policy and people.

Gretchen A. Peck is Editor & Publisher’s editor-in-chief. She welcomes your emails at editor@editorandpublisher.com.