Saturday, January 6, 2001

By Sandra Jontz
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — A group of newspaper leaders has rebuked Stars and Stripes publisher Tom Kelsch and admonished the Department of Defense for censoring a story written by a Stripes staff writer in August.

The Associated Press Managing Editors, at their recent annual meeting, passed a resolution urging the DOD to "review its commitment to the kind of newsroom independence its own regulations call for. In the absence of national security breaches, government authorities should not encroach on the ‘free flow of news.’ "

Despite its criticism, Kelsch praised the APME for its action and said he welcomes the organization’s oversight.

"I’m very grateful to them for doing that," said Kelsch, who became publisher of the paper a little more than a year ago. "We do live in an atmosphere where our freedom needs to be protected at all costs, and it’s good to have an outside organization watching over us and how we operate."

Though partially funded by the federal government, Stars and Stripes is an independent DOD publication and serves servicemembers, their families and DOD civilians overseas.

In August, Kelsch withheld a story about the U.S. Army telling a Patriot anti-missile unit in Germany to be prepared for possible deployment to Israel. Kelsch said that, in his estimation, running the story would threatened national security and the lives U.S. military servicemembers.

The Washington Post published a similar story about the Patriot anti-missile unit the same day the Stars and Stripes story was scheduled to run.

Since then, DOD and Stripes officials have spoken with Congress, which oversees DOD regulations, for possible changes in the directive which deals with Stripes' editorial issues.

APME’s action strengthens the effort, said Clifford Bernath, director of the American Forces Information Services, the DOD link and Stars and Stripes’ parent organization.

"Does the APME resolution result in any change? No," Bernath said. "But it does serve to remind us that this is an important issue, that freedom of the press and First Amendment rights for the Stars and Stripes are protected."

In a letter dated Thursday to APME president Jerry Ceppos, Bernath wrote: "While I do not agree with your interpretation of the facts that generated this resolution, I do agree with you about the need to protect the First Amendment rights of the Stars and Stripes to publish news and information of importance to our overseas readers."

The paper has built-in safeguards, Bernath said. The publisher and ombudsman are civilians, Congress has oversight of regulations, and news media groups like APME and the Society of Professional Journalists monitor the paper.

"There are a lot of safeguards, not the least of which is my commitment to protecting those rights," said Bernath, who alerted Kelsch of the military’s concerns with the story.

He stressed, however, that military officials did not direct the newspaper to withhold the story.

"It was the civilian leadership of the Stars and Stripes. It was his decision. Tom did exactly what he was supposed to do and got every bit of information he needed," Bernath said.

The incident is rare, Bernath said.

"I get a lot of calls from a lot of commanders and my job is to defend and protect the Stars and Stripes against any kind of interference, and we do a great job of that," said Bernath, adding this is the first incident of such magnitude in his 10 years of working with the publication in various capacities. "This does not establish a pattern."

The resolution itself has sparked action, Stripes ombudsman David Mazzarella said.

"The particulars of the episode can be debated forever," Mazzarella said. "But the important thing now is that for the first time since the episode, or at least in the strongest language, DOD is pledging full commitment to Stars and Stripes’ journalistic independence. This is forward-looking."

The resolution acknowledges the "broader rights of the Department of Defense in its role as an owner-publisher" and the "military’s oversight prerogative, including rare instances in which censorship or other such actions might be applied."

But APME "admonishes the department for apparently overstepping the bounds of its own regulations regarding editorial content."

The clash prompted executive editor David Offer to quit his position on Aug. 31, after just four months on the job and a day after he bought a home in the Washington, D.C., area.

"I thought that the decision to censor the Stars and Stripes was a terrible thing to do for the newspaper and its readers," Offer said. "I don’t think it would have been honorable for me to remain as editor when I could not support the newspaper and its decision."

Offer, who until Saturday had held a yearlong position as treasurer for the APME, said he did not seek action from the organization.

"I wasn’t involved in bringing it about. However, I think it reflects the opinion of the industry in general that the military made a mistake in censoring the news."

The Stripes story was virtually the same as the Post’s front-page article. What infuriated Offer, he said, was that the following day, the Stars and Stripes published the Post article instead of publishing the article by its own writer.

Kelsch said a "quirk" in the regulations prevented the paper from printing its own story because it contained classified information. It did not stop Stripes from printing another paper’s version with the same information.

In the end, it didn’t matter.

"We had to tell our readers about it," Kelsch said. "I don’t think the readers cared whose story it was."

The incident likely damaged the paper’s credibility among readers, Offer said.

"The Stars and Stripes has credibility with its readers only if it’s independent of Pentagon control, and the paper has claimed that," Offer said. "Now, (the censorship incident) casts great doubt on that independence. Readers believe in objectivity only if they see (the Stars and Stripes) as an independent newspaper."

He said he hopes APME’s resolution will raise needed attention to bring about change.

"I think the Stars and Stripes is too valuable a newspaper to have its franchise damaged," Offer said. "And I think it has been damaged."

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