Press freedom advocates have condemned a move by the Pentagon to seize editorial control of the independent Stars and Stripes newspaper, a daily publication for service members that has covered the US armed forces since the US civil war.

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that the outlet would no longer cover “woke distractions”, and instead “modernize its operations … and adapt to serve a new generation of service members”.

“The Department of War is returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, wrote on X, using the government’s informal new nickname for the defense department.

“It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.”

Pentagon officials will now be in charge of content that “will be custom tailored to our warfighters”, Parnell added.

The government published a final rule in the federal register on Thursday that struck previous policy regarding Stars and Stripes’ business operations, including a requirement for a civilian editor and an independent ombudsman who is “a highly qualified journalist hired from outside the department of defense”.

The action drew immediate censure from press freedom groups as the latest attempt by the Pentagon to stifle criticism and control what is written about it.

“American troops overseas deserve credible, trustworthy news guaranteed by the first amendment, a cornerstone of the constitution they defend. Instead, the Pentagon is trying to turn this independent newsroom into a mouthpiece for the administration’s political messaging,” Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director for PEN America, said in a statement.

“This action tramples both the first amendment and the congressional mandate that the publication remain editorially independent. As President Trump proposes a significant increase in defense department spending and new foreign military operations, the US needs more independent reporting, not less.

“Congress must continue to protect Stars and Stripes’ editorial independence and ensure the administration allows it to serve military members free from political influence.”

Erik Slavin, the newspaper’s editor in chief, was equally forthright in a message to staff published in Stars and Stripes. “The people who risk their lives in defense of the Constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment,” he wrote.

“We will not compromise on serving them with accurate and balanced coverage, holding military officials to account when called for.”

In December, the Pentagon press corps, a longstanding alliance of journalists from traditional, independent media groups, resigned en masse over new policies set by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to restrict their activities. It was replaced by a hand-picked collection of “rightwing bloggers and Maga sycophants” perceived to be more compliant with Hegseth’s demands.

Stars and Stripes was founded in 1861 by Union troops in Missouri to serve as an informational asset for American soldiers in the final days of the civil war, according to the resource platform Ebsco. Its articles and widespread circulation of 1.2m were credited with boosting the morale of US troops during the second world war by connecting them to life back home.

It was the first to publish the iconic photograph of US marines raising the American flag at Iwo Jima in 1945, which won a Pulitzer prize for photographer Joe Rosenthal; and in 2015 an investigation by its reporter Travis Tritten led to the downfall of the veteran NBC news anchor Brian Williams, who falsely claimed he was in an army helicopter that was brought down by rocket fire in Iraq.

While formally part of the Pentagon’s media operations, Stars and Stripes has traditionally been protected by a congressional mandate and defense department directive that states: “There shall be a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship.”

Donald Trump has pursued an aggressive anti-press policy since returning to the White House a year ago, including filing lawsuits against outlets that have been critical of him.

Earlier this week the FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in Virginia; and on Thursday Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, launched an extraordinary personal tirade during a press briefing against a reporter for the Hill who asked a question about last week’s killing of an unarmed US citizen by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis.

The anti-media push has coincided with a dramatic increase in violence against journalists in the US. The Freedom of the Press Foundation reported last month that assaults in 2025 almost matched the previous three years combined, and that dozens of reporters had been arrested or detained.