The Pentagon has named a public affairs executive as acting publisher of Stars and Stripes months after scrapping independence rules and ousting the paper’s prior leadership.
Christian Devine, principal advisor and executive director in the Pentagon’s public affairs office, is now acting publisher of the long-running military newspaper. He will split time between that interim post and his primary Pentagon job until a permanent publisher is chosen.
The Daily Caller reported the appointment on October 14, 2026, after Stars and Stripes itself noted the move on social media and Navy Capt. Bill Urban, the paper’s military deputy to the publisher, informed Military.com. Devine is a former Marine Corps colonel and no longer an active-duty servicemember.
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell framed the choice as continuity of mission rather than a break with the paper’s purpose.
"The Pentagon is proud to appoint Chris Devine to serve as acting publisher of Stars and Stripes. As a former Marine Corps colonel and a seasoned public affairs leader, Chris brings unmatched expertise, strategic vision, and a commitment to ensuring Stars and Stripes maintains editorial independence while delivering exclusive, mission-focused reporting that directly serves America’s warfighters and their families. In this interim role, he will provide decisive leadership to modernize Stars and Stripes and to strengthen its mission."
A Pentagon official separately told Military.com that Devine “is expected to act in the best interest of Stars and Stripes and the Department of War.” The arrangement places a current public-affairs leader inside the publisher’s chair of a paper that, for generations, operated at arm’s length from the building that now funds a large share of its work.
Stars and Stripes is a 165-year-old military newspaper founded in 1861, during the Civil War, as an outlet meant to speak for the soldier rather than for government interests. That historic claim to distance from official messaging took a direct hit earlier this year.
On January 15, the Pentagon repealed the federal regulations that had guaranteed the paper’s editorial independence. The same day, Parnell announced an overhaul meant to steer the publication away from what he called “woke distractions.” The Federal Register carried the regulatory change under the Stars and Stripes Media Organization entry.
Those steps fit a wider pattern of leadership turnover and internal friction across the defense establishment as priorities are reset. The paper’s new marching orders were not subtle: less cultural side content, more direct service to troops and families.
The New York Post reported the Pentagon’s plan to refocus Stars and Stripes on warfighting, weapons, fitness, and core military topics while ending material officials viewed as a drain on morale. Parnell put the objective in plain terms.
"The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters. We are bringing Stars & Stripes into the 21st century. We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members."
Taxpayers already cover roughly half the paper’s budget through the Pentagon. When the department both bankrolls the outlet and sets its editorial guardrails, the old independence model was always going to face pressure. January made that pressure official.
Less than two months before Devine’s appointment, the Pentagon removed the paper’s top editorial ranks. Fired were publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, and Middle East reporter Laura Korte.
The three had appeared in an August CBS interview and spoke openly about their disagreements with the new Pentagon measures. In September, Lederer claimed a Stars and Stripes story on the well-being of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln had helped trigger the firings. The department did not treat the public dissent as protected internal debate.
That sequence, rule repeal in January, critical coverage and a network interview in August, firings shortly after, then a Pentagon public-affairs executive in the publisher’s seat by mid-October, shows a consistent line of effort. Officials wanted the paper back on mission. When prior managers resisted in public, they were replaced.
Similar accountability fights have marked other corners of the building, including sharp pushback against contested personnel reporting and disputes over how the department communicates its own decisions. Stars and Stripes was not exempt from the same demand for alignment.
Fox News reported that Devine will keep his public-affairs role while serving as acting publisher, underscoring how tightly the interim arrangement ties the newspaper to the department’s communications shop. Parnell’s statement still insisted on “editorial independence” even as the structural reality shifted.
"As a former Marine Corps colonel and a seasoned public affairs leader, Chris brings unmatched expertise, strategic vision and a commitment to ensuring Stars and Stripes maintains editorial independence while delivering exclusive, mission-focused reporting that directly serves America’s war fighters and their families."
Independence language remains in the press release. The chain of command does not. A principal advisor inside Pentagon public affairs now holds the acting publisher title at a paper whose independence regulations the same department erased in January. Readers can weigh the words against the org chart.
Service members and their families remain the stated audience. The content brief is now explicit: weapons, readiness, fitness, and the daily realities of the force. Cultural side quests that officials said sapped morale are out. That is a policy choice with clear winners, the troops who rely on the paper for practical information, and clear losers, the prior managers who preferred a different mix.
Broader fights over civilian control, information discipline, and wartime priorities have already produced open Republican skepticism of Pentagon management and separate clashes over casualty figures and statutory limits. Putting a public-affairs professional in charge of Stars and Stripes is one more concrete step in the same direction: message discipline in service of the warfighter, not the other way around.
The paper’s own social account treated the Devine appointment as settled fact. Capt. Urban’s notice to Military.com did the same. No competing claim from the fired leadership has reversed the personnel decision. The interim arrangement is in place, the regulatory floor for independence is gone, and the modernization brief is public.
For a newspaper born to carry the soldier’s voice, the test is simple. Does the product help the force, or does it lecture it? The Pentagon has now installed a leader whose day job is public affairs and whose orders are to modernize and refocus. That is not a mystery. It is a choice.
Troops deserve straight reporting on the fight they are in, not another outlet chasing fashion or politics at their expense.