Pentagon Funding Cuts May Silence ‘Stars and Stripes’ by Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory, Military Times / USA Today
Stars and Stripes may lose its federal funding — $12 million a year — under a proposal being considered by the Department of Defense, according to an April 21 column by the newspaper’s ombudsman.
The paper is run by the Department of Defense’s Defense Media Activity division, but maintains editorial sovereignty.
“Of the appropriated funds, $7 million comes from the regular defense budget and $5 million from overseas contingency operations funds — the war budget — mostly to pay for printing and distributing the paper downrange,” ombudsman Tobias Naegele wrote, noting that the paper’s publisher estimates the proposed cuts equal 40% of its overall funding.
The rest of the budget comes from funds not allocated by Congress…
Naegele praised the Business Process and Systems Review team’s concern as due diligence, and acknowledged that, when it comes down to it, the numbers don’t work in the newspaper’s favor. But he also made the case for print newspapers being a key link between service members who are forward-deployed in areas lacking reliable internet access and the news back home in the United States.
“Studying Stars and Stripes’ balance sheet tells us the obvious: The newspaper loses money,” he wrote. “It’s the intangibles that are harder for us to understand.”…