Jasper Craven The ship has been out to sea for the longest stretch of time without a port call in modern history. Effects on physical and mental health are dire. The post The USS “Lincoln” Is Part of a Long History of Naval Mistreatment…
Page B3From§Eachthe matinee edition — 31 August 2026
Military-newspaper journalists sue Hegseth over firings as Navy chalks up another chapter in mistreating its own
As it ran on the front
OBITUARY: The Presumption That the Pentagon Does Not Fire the People Covering It
Born sometime after the founding of Stars and Stripes, a paper written for and largely by service members since the Civil War, the presumption that a military newspaper answers to accuracy before rank died this week, following a lawsuit filed on behalf of its journalists against the office of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, over what a lawyer says may have led to their firings.…
…(cont) It is survived by the sailors of the USS Lincoln, whose own file, a long one, was reopened this week by reporting on the ship's place in a longer history of naval mistreatment — men and women who served under an institution that has, across that history, been better at logging the mistreatment than correcting it.
It was preceded in death by a great many smaller things nobody wrote an obituary for at the time: the assumption that a firing needs a stated reason, the assumption that a lawsuit is what happens after the reasons run out, the assumption that a uniformed press corps reporting on its own chain of command was a feature of that chain and not a nuisance to be managed.
The cause of death, per the record, is under review by the same office being sued for it, which is not usually how causes of death get established, but this is the Pentagon, and the Pentagon keeps its own file.
This paper does not traffic in insults, and will not start with an institution old enough to know better, but it will say this much plainly: an outfit that fires its own reporters and carries a documented history of mistreating its own sailors is not managing morale. It is managing the shit that would otherwise get written down.
No services are planned. The Navy does not hold funerals for its own oversight; it holds hearings, eventually, for other things.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you renew a Stars and Stripes subscription, or better, that you read what's left of it before the next round of firings makes that harder to do.
“They fire the guys who cover the war, then get sued for it, and somewhere down the same org chart there's a whole century of the Navy quietly working over the people already inside it — different decks, same ship. An institution that won't answer to its own reporters isn't going to answer to its own sailors either, and that's the actual story, not the personalities in it.”
“Personnel decisions at Stars and Stripes are, and have always been, entirely editorial in nature, with no relation to the coverage in question — did I say no relation, there may be some relation, that's currently under review, by the same office being sued for it.”
The receipts
Three fired Stars and Stripes journalists are suing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and two other top Pentagon officials. Amy Powell with Lawyers for Good Government joins CBS News with more on the lawsuit.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.