Stars and Stripes is a government ( DoD ) newspaper. How does it speak truth to power when it is a pentagon run entity?

It definitely is more pro-military than average, but it has done a surprisingly good job of maintaining editorial independence. It most certainly is independent from White House control, if not DoD control.

Trump just tweeted that he won't let this happen.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13019688734875648...

"let" is not accurate word choice, for mukrtiple reasons.

What right do you have to determine who is allowed to have an opinion, and why is serving a precondition?

I did serve, I've done time overseas including in Iraq, but I did not do so out of some distorted sense that it made my citizenship or opinion somehow more valuable than any others.

I served to protect and defend the rights of every person under the Constitution. Suggesting that somebody's speech be curtailed or ignored because they did not is frankly antithetical to the oath we took.

And frankly, it's not surprising to me that somebody who so callously disregards one aspect of the 1st Amendment would treat the rest of it with the same level of disdain.

But I'm certainly not going to allow you to attribute an opinion to most who serve without standing up as a counter example.

I appreciated The Military Times and S&S when I was overseas, and I know many other service men and women who did as well.

> I also don't think taxpayer money should be going to VOA or PBS or NPR for the very same reasons.

VOA is literally a federal government foreign propaganda service that is operated (in theory, mainly as a defensive countermove against hostile government propaganda) to advance US government information interests abroad.

Now, it's usually operated in a standard journalistic manner because the US government has both seen truth as the best the long-term defense against hostile propaganda and seen VOA being seen as trustworthy as the best way to not get target populations to learn to ignore it.

VOA is legally obligated to only tell the truth. News services don't have the same obligation.

NPR gets 1% of it's funding directly from the Feds:

https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...

Local PBS radio stations do get more funding through the CPB (corporation for public broadcasting), but that seems to be only about 12% from local/state/federal sources.

The CPB itself seems to get about $450 million a year from Congressional apportionment.

https://www.cpb.org/appropriation/history

However, most of the funding PBS/NPR gets are from private and corporate donations.

Out of curiosity, do you think that taxpayer money should go towards campaign events for the President?

Taxpayer money is given to campaigns through the presidential public funding program.

Sounds like you're trying to ascribe malice to a pretty reasonable question. I'm just trying to understand your position: if taxpayer money should be withheld from what you view as politically biased media, then should it also be withhold from explicitly politically biased campaign events? Seems like it should be, but then again I'd like to hear your opinion.

Not the OP, but I think political parties have no legitimate role in government and should be banned from using any public resources, using government buildings (even by rental,) using dmv resources or otherwise involving themselves in voter registration, etc. Nor should it be legal to list them on the ballot..

It is absolutely the case that corruption is laundered through organizations. If a person profits it is illegal, if he directs profit to his organization and takes back a commission it is somehow fine?

Do you have any evidence of that bias? Or are you of the opinion that any criticism of the President's policies is necessarily biased and therefore, in your words, BS?

Why do you assume my opinion of Stars and Stripes has anything to do with the criticism of the current administration?

Because you used the expression "orange man bad," which is often used by defenders of the current administration to counter what they see as unreasonable criticisms. Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding you.

Can you provide an example of the allegedly biased reporting in S&S?

> But orange man bad, I get it.

An interesting perspective that people in the military have that civilians don't is that the president is also the commander in chief.

Even if you don't respect the person, you still respect the role.

And this is someone who can send you to war. You can't get any more serious of a link.

Are the people who say "respect the role" now the same ones that said Obama was a secret Kenyan that ran a human-trafficking ring in a pizza parlor though? Not trolling, this is a serious question because I don't think we all realize yet just how gaslit and completely bonkers every crevasse of discourse is after years of Trumpian propaganda and reactionary media.

They didn't just say that Obama WAS a secret Kenyan that RAN a human-trafficking ring in a pizza parlor. They are still saying it.

> now the same ones that said Obama was a secret Kenyan that ran a human-trafficking ring in a pizza parlor though?

I have never heard this. Apparently we get our news from different sources. Did I miss anything, or are my filters working properly?

The military has rules of professional conduct which help establish a non-toxic culture. "Respect the role" flows from that. When you're given orders, you're not going to make a personal judgement on the president. You're going to do your job. A toxic culture could cost lives.

The military can be a strange world for people who have never served.

“Pizzagate”[0] was what it was called. And people still believe it. Never mind the fact that there’s literally no basement in the parlor.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory

Also the "birther" conspiracy theory famously extensively spread and popularized, for years, by Trump and his family and campaign.

The pizzagate thing is related to QAnon as well, something of a prototype of it.

Having served the Military of my country (NATO member) I can tell you that one can both obey orders AND believe that their President/PM/Minister of Defence is a dick :)

Edit: regarding the "sending you to war" cough ..Saddam-weapons of mass destruction.. (???)(rings any bells??) cough

I think your comment may have been fine without the last line, which discards your cogent and reasonable argument up to that point and invites the world to engage in a culture war brawl that benefits no one.

A response worthy of OPs comment.

Thanks for your service. Out of curiosity, where do you get your news?

I agree: bias is part of human nature, and cannot be fully removed from news. Given that, what's wrong with Stars & Stripes?

Also, I think GP question was pretty reasonable. Why are you trying to infer an "agenda"? It makes you look unreasonable. Everyone has their own opinion. It's not a leading question.

What "agenda" would that be? All I said was S&S is biased in my opinion... after having read the periodical on the regular for the last 32 years.

Based on your other questions, I don't think it's me coming off as unreasonable. Your mileage will vary, obviously.

When you accused GP of using a "leading question," when he asked your where you get your news, it sounds like you cynically interpret any question as an attack. You can tell me which agenda you're assuming on the part of your interlocutor.

And I've asked you a few times for evidence of bias in S&S. I understand that it's your opinion that S&S is biased, but surely that opinion was formed on the basis of evidence.... right?

My god it's hard to take you seriously. Your attitude is insufferable. The most innocent, obvious question is interpreted as a coordinated attack. "That's a leading question...Are you a white house correspondent?" Everyone is met with scrutiny here, you're not special, you just can't hold up against a slight breeze of pressure. Just like the pres.

> Only difference is I don't limit my sources by their viewpoint or bias.

Difference from whom? Do you think most people do this or were you speaking specifically to the person whose comment you were responding to?

Every article, and in fact every utterance, is inherently biased, if for no other reason than your choice of word of what you leave out to make a point, is itself a choice.

The telegraph and subsequent rise of news bureaux (first Reuter’s, then UPI and AP in the us) lead to a theory of “neutral” news in the hope of increasing the customer base (sell to more newspapers of all leanings) but it’s still inherently biased on its foundations.

Your comments make it seem like you're skeptical of narratives often seen in mainstream media. With that in mind, do you believe:

1. That man-made climate change is not a real phenomenon, or that, if it is, it is not a threat to humankind?

2. That COVID-19 was deliberately released by the Chinese government, possibly with the help of Bill Gates and other powerful people?

What would you consider an unbiased/bs-free source of news? Or where do you prefer to get your news from?

Unbiased news sources don't exist in today's world. It's up to you and your critical thinking to digest all this bs and come up with your own conclusions. What I'm saying is journalism shouldn't be about convincing you or reinforcing a point of view. It's about presenting facts without bias to let the consumer make up their own mind. That doesn't exist in today's over-charged political environment, which is a whole other discussion.

The press has always been biased, I don't know why you're acting like this is a recent development.

> about presenting facts without bias to let the consumer make up their own mind. That doesn't exist in today's over-charged political environment, which is a whole other discussion.

I see this card being played to justify how they ignore and cherry-pick facts that suits their personal agenda, because they treasure their tribal view of politics over making informed, rational decisions.

Show me one in the last generation or two that did?

Who harassed more journalist and whistle blowers during their time in office, Trump or Obama. Neither was great but the prior administration set new standards for threatening those who would make government justify its actions. The difference is one was a media darling and the other is a media flashpoint

No contest: Trump harasses journalists at every rally – by now, hundreds or thousands of them. And whistle blowers? He fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and his brother after Vindman testified. His lackeys in the House exposed the IRS whistleblower by name.

It’s true that Obama was pretty agressive about prosecuting whistleblowers, but it also true that no president in modern times before the Donald has called the press ‘the enemy of the people’ and calls every criticism of him ‘fake news’.

Free speech is a two-way street. Journalists are allowed to criticize politicians, but for the same reason politicians are allowed to criticize journalists. The government prosecuting journalists concerns me more than the government criticizing journalists, though both are concerning. Thankfully Trump is too impotent to make good on most of his juvenile threats, or we'd definitely be in trouble. More than Trump, I fear a hypothetical future president who's competent enough to do more than spout hot air.

I agree he’s mostly empty threats. After all, he’s threatened to revoke social media platforms’ Section 230 protection since before he took office. But when Twitter had the audacity to fact check him, he attempted to make good on his word with an executive order.

He thinks he can do a lot more than he can, but we still should be fighting back.

I don't really have a stake here, and voted for Obama but he and his justice department prosecuted a record number of journalists. To quote the Washington Post "Of the 13 people who have" (ever) "been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking secrets, eight were arrested under Obama's administration"

Anyone have a full list of who they are counting as either the 8 or 13 in that quote? According to Wikipedia, the number of people who have been charged under the espionage act is much higher than 13. For example, there are 52 pages of people convicted under the act.[1] I guess it depends on your definition of "leaking". The relevant dictionary definition of leak is "to give out (information) surreptitiously".[2] Giving information to a foreign government should seemingly be classified as leaking so I'm not sure we should necessarily link it to either journalistic endeavors or whistleblowing.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Persons_convicted_und...

[2] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leak

*For leaking secrets to journalists

Ok, don't you think that is a pretty big qualifier to leave out? It also leads us to a question of what is a journalist? Reasonable people can look at Assange and see him as either a journalist or an agent of a foreign government.

It’s in the quote, except for “to journalists” which is in the article I pulled the quote from. I suppose I could have included the next two sentences.

You're being intentionally misleading. The eight prosecuted are not journalists themselves but government employees who leaked sensitive documents to journalists.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/5/obama-and-le...

And in addition, Vindman wasn’t prosecuted for leaking secrets. He was fired in retribution for giving testimony before Congress, a completely legal thing to do.

EDIT I misunderstood the post -

It’s unethical to report on a violation of ethics? That makes no sense.

I was confused by the wording - the post seemed like it was saying that it was legal to fire vindman or okay - but I just misread it.

I think you're looking for a "gotcha" to call critics of the Trump administration hypocrites, but you will find that 1. people are never logically or morally consistent so this is a weak point in the first place and 2. A lot of people who oppose Trump from the left share your anger with the Obama administration and see him as someone who ran on progressive values and governed as a center-right neoliberal with a penchant for military adventurism.

Whataboutwhat?