While drama over the Pentagon’s firing of Stars and Stripes publisher Max Lederer plays out in the establishment media, sources close to the situation are telling Breitbart News that the military publication had suffered under his 20 years of leadership.
Stars and Stripes’ budget for FY 2026 was $27.4 million — with 65 percent of that coming from taxpayers and the rest being generated from subscription and ad revenue. The outlet was first created during the Civil War, before being revived in World War I as a way to get news to troops overseas.
Lederer announced that he would be stepping down from his position at the helm of the outlet last Tuesday, before he and two other employees were handed separation notices on Friday.
“It has become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization,” Lederer wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Post, in which he said he would be retiring on September 30.
Lederer’s break from the “direction” that the Pentagon had for the publication, which maintains editorial freedom while receiving funding from the military, came soon after an active-duty Navy captain and public affairs officer was appointed to be his deputy.
Capt. William Urban, who was given the deputy role this month, said in a Friday open letter that his priority was to ensure that Stars and Stripes puts out “the highest quality of editorially independent reporting.”
In that open letter, Urban revealed that Lederer had refused to meet with him about a project to streamline and modernize the outlet:
I came up with nine recommendations that I sent to Mr. Lederer in a memorandum on the morning of Monday August 16, after working on the proposal over the weekend. I asked in the memo to meet with him and discuss the recommendations. I received no response before or after Mr. Lederer announced his retirement the afternoon of August 17. I regret that we may not have that opportunity.
Editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte also received separation notices on Friday, after the pair participated in a CBS News interview in which they arguably undermined the outlet’s structure under the government.
When asked how her story on Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny touring in Europe was related to the military, Korte, who is based in Germany, said military personnel stationed overseas “want to have fun,” and stated that she does not work for the Department of War (DOW).
“I’m working for Stars and Stripes, not for the Pentagon, not for any administration, not for any policymaker,” Korte told CBS. “I’m here to cover the military community.”
Slavin criticized changes unveiled by DOW spokesman Sean Parnell, who took to X in January to announce that Stars and Stripes would be modernized and “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale.”
“I really don’t know what they were referring to, because they didn’t explain it,” the then-editor-in-chief told CBS.
A March 2026 memo from the Pentagon about the impending modernization went too far, according to Slavin.
While he acknowledged that the memo stated that the paper remains independent, Slavin complained that they could no longer run comics or news from wire services like the Associated Press (AP).
“It’s more difficult for us to cover breaking news,” he argued in last week’s interview with CBS.
Speaking with Breitbart News, sources alleged that Stars and Stripes went from largely publishing original content to acting as a news aggregator for wire services such as the AP under Lederer’s leadership — with projections for 2026 showing that the paper was going to spend $411,000 on such services, despite the same articles already being available online for free.
While the firings blew up in the Washington Post and New York Times, insiders said Lederer was not let go for political differences, but for insubordination — as he reportedly refused to show up for work, including to meetings on the Pentagon’s modernization directives, which he also refused to implement.
According to one of the sources, the employees who sat down with CBS News violated the department policy about speaking to the media.
While Stars and Stripes‘ readership declined since its peaks during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, publicly available data shows that the publication’s sharpest decline is more recent, when annual unique web visitors fell about 30 percent from 20 million in 2019 to 14 million in 2024.
Print delivery also went down in that same period, declining from seven million copies per year to 6.2 million.
Despite lower readership, Lederer reportedly resisted the modernization efforts coming from the Pentagon while getting paid a $207,500 salary as a non-appropriated fund (NAF) Senior Executive Service employee.
“Lederer is likely going to paint himself as some kind of a First Amendment martyr, but in reality, it’s much simpler: he’s just bad at his job,” one source told Breitbart News. “He’s insubordinate to his bosses, refuses to do what he’s told, and in general has failed to make Stars and Stripes a competitor in this new digital age. New leadership is desperately needed.”
Another source who worked with Lederer added, “I’m surprised he lasted this long. Max led Stripes into the ground.”
The Pentagon declined to comment for this story.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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