Max Lederer told colleagues this week he plans to retire on September 30 as publisher of Stars and Stripes. He cited fundamental differences with the Trump administration. Before he can get there, Pentagon officials are discussing whether to fire him first, according to U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News.
Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin has also spoken publicly about disagreements with Pentagon leaders, including in conversations with CBS News. It remains unclear when a decision on leadership would be made. Spokespeople for the Defense Department did not immediately comment.
Stars and Stripes receives about $15 million of its $29 million annual budget from taxpayers. The remaining funding comes from subscriptions and advertisements. The paper has long maintained that it operates with editorial independence from the Pentagon's public affairs apparatus.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has been publicly critical of the outlet's direction. In January, he wrote on social media that the administration would "modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members." He also stated the outlet would "focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints."
Readership has declined since the outlet's peaks during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, according to two U.S. officials citing public records. Print delivery dropped from about 7 million annual copies in 2019 to 6.2 million in 2024. Unique visitors to stripes.com fell roughly 30 percent over the same period, from 20 million to 14 million per year.
Pentagon staff have pointed to stacks of newspapers in the building that appear to go untouched. Critics inside the building have also raised concerns that the paper has functioned largely as an aggregator of news from other outlets rather than producing predominantly original content. Records show the publication was projected to spend about $400,000 this year on subscription services for content that appears in its pages. Stars and Stripes no longer uses wire services such as Reuters or the Associated Press.
Newspapers typically use wire service copy to cover news their own staff cannot report directly. The outlet reaches an average of 1.4 million people per day, mostly online, though it continues to distribute a print edition overseas for service members in remote locations where internet access can be unreliable.
Lederer has served as publisher for 19 years, a tenure that spans multiple presidential administrations and significant shifts in how military personnel consume news. No replacement has been named publicly, and no timeline for any leadership change has been announced.
