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for our men of war
Women, too. Legendary read of G.I.s in trenches.
By Jeff Bercovici
A constant refrain of the government during the new war on terrorism and the Taliban has been that this will be a war unlike any in our nation's history.
But in one way it will be the same: As in wars past, the men and women at the front will be getting much of their news from The Stars and Stripes.
A daily newspaper serving members of the armed forces and government workers stationed overseas, Stripes, as it's informally known, has been around a long time in one form or another.
Its first incarnation was as a one-time, one-page news sheet printed on a captured printing press by four Union soldiers early in the Civil War.
The Stars and Stripes was published weekly in Paris during the last year of World War I by a staff that included Harold Ross, who went on to found The New Yorker.
During World War II, Stripes was revived and established permanently as a daily, with encouragement from Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It has been published ever since, covering the American involvement in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
This week, Stripes got a new commander of its own when David Mazzarella, who had been serving as the paper's ombudsman, was named editorial director, a position in which he will oversee both the European and Pacific editions of the paper.
Mazzarella takes the reins from executive editor Bill Walker, who has been assigned other duties.
Despite its unique origins, Stripes is essentially no different from any other paper you might pick up, says Mazzarella.
Though it operates under the auspices of the Department of Defense, Stripes has complete editorial independence, apart from an injunction against publishing classified information that could endanger national security.
"What makes it unique from other military publications is that it has, thanks to Congress, a First Amendment status independent of and not subject to any censorship on the part of military brass," says Mazzarella.
He points to a recent investigation into the questionable dispensing of medals following the war in Bosnia as evidence that the paper is not afraid to criticize the Defense Department.
The flip side of this arms-length arrangement is that Stripes reporters do not, contrary to what you might expect, have any better access to American troops or intelligence than their counterparts at other news organizations.
"I wish we did," says Mazzarella. "As a matter of fact, its directive says it's supposed to have the same access as commercial newspapers, no more and no less. It does not have any special privileges. In this present war situation, for reporters to go on ships or to go with troops, they have to wait in line like everybody else."
One significant difference between Stripes and other papers is that it does not, as a matter of policy, run editorials.
Mazzarella says there's a good reason for that.
"Even though it is totally independent, it would be very difficult for people in other countries to believe an editorial appearing in Stars and Stripes is not the voice of the Pentagon or the voice of the American government," he says.
"What it does have are plenty of letters to the editor, independent columns by well-known columnists and plenty of political cartoons."
In its earlier days, Stripes was staffed largely by active members of the armed forces, but today the staff consists almost entirely of civilians. Mazzarella himself was a longtime European correspondent for the Associated Press, during which time he covered the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. From 1985 to 1995, he headed up the international edition of USA Today and then served as editor of the domestic edition until 1999.
Mazzarella says The Stars and Stripes gets about one-third of its funding from the Department of Defense and the other two-thirds from advertising and circulation.
Ads are geared to the needs of soldiers and sailors and their families living abroad on military bases, who make up about 80 percent of the paper’s readers.
National advertisers include car manufacturers and makers of foods and beverages, while local advertising in the two editions comes largely from telephone companies, car dealerships and the tourism and entertainment industries, says publisher Thomas E. Kelsch.
Stripes, says Kelsch, has been subject to the same economic forces that have sucked the advertising from many other newspapers. The paper suffered acutely in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, as bases were sealed off and post exchanges and commissaries were closed, causing advertisers to pull their ads.
November 1,
2001 © 2001 Media Life-
Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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