Readers comment on Fort Meade column
Published: March 5, 2012
Interesting comments on my column on why the Stars and Stripes central office shouldn’t be co-located with Defense Media Activity’s main command-directed production center at Fort Meade. Some support the move. Some object to it. Some of the objections actually make my point. I’ll take up a sample and respond here on the blog, in the spirit of give and take. You can read all the comments here. (Just scroll to the bottom.) Please add your own comments, at the bottom of the column or here on the blog.
Considering how commonly online comments descend into rants and vulgarity, let me note right away how impressively civil and rational these have been.
To be fair, let’s start the sample with one who disagrees with the position I expressed in the column.
A commenter identified as Warren Jason Street said save the rent money: “I'm sorry but budget realities dictate that Stars & Stripes should relocate to Fort Meade and operate out of facilities there. With strong leadership, there should be no concern whatsoever about any blurring of the lines between what happens with the Army media folks there and with the Stars and Stripes publication staff. As long as the divide between the two is established and enforced, it doesn't matter which building it operates out of. What matters is that it doesn't go under and that it doesn't stop publishing. It simply doesn't matter which "government-owned" space the publication operates from. Operating from a government-owned space automatically eliminates any claim of being free from influence or bias. However, the publication itself has to be led in such a way as to be independent and hopefully that can continue.”
Or, as bobdebarb put it: “Money is tight. Uncle Sam pays the rent. Suck it up.”
Everybody at Stripes recognizes the budget realities – they report on them, they live with them every day. They’re not arguing to be immune from budget cuts. But the publisher, Max Lederer, says he has plans for making the necessary expense cuts without setting up his central editing and decision-making shop in the same building as Defense Media Activity’s main production operation, As he put it, he’ll accomplish the savings without risking the organization’s journalistic integrity. I think he’s trying to do just what Warren Jason Street says is necessary: to lead in a way that Stripes’ independence can continue.
As for the “unavoidable taint” of operating out of any government-owned space, I believe that’s a sliding scale. Private space is obviously the most “independent,” but there are significant degrees of difference between a government space unrelated to the DOD, a space at a DOD installation that has no public affairs mission and one that houses central public affairs production and leadership. Stripes’ publisher and editorial director have both said they don’t object to leaving the rented space at the National Press Building; but they want to land somewhere on that sliding scale other than in the DMA building at Fort Meade.
The reader identified as Time2Zzz backed that idea: “Try to find other space — away from TRADOC, etc. Plenty of downsizing and cost-cutting going on right beside S&S there in D.C. Some other building will open up. Keep fighting! Stay there in D.C. Stay as completely independent as you can for as long as you can.”
Commenter Commander_Chico endorsed Stripes’ independent journalism. “I have been pleased with S&S's independence for more than 30 years. I've even had letters to the editor published which complained about command practices and denounced a sitting president. The trend might be towards making it just another ‘base newspaper,’ but it should be resisted.”
So how can Stripes’ reporters work on bases, asks Gladiatorial: “If working in a military building on Fort Meade is as problematic as you state, then maybe Stars and Stripes staff should no longer embed with our troops, or they should no longer live in military housing, or maybe they should stop working out of offices on military bases altogether and go without receiving a single dollar of appropriated funds from DMA or Congress.”
As you say, Stars and Stripes reporters are located on military bases and with military units around the world. That’s the community they report on. And, whether it’s a Stripes reporter or a reporter from another organization, it takes discipline to remain impartial in those circumstances. Same is true, frankly, with reporters anywhere – it takes discipline to be impartial at city hall, in Congress, at the courthouse or the cop shop. But the question about where to locate the editors and decision-makers in Stripes central newsroom is a little different than where its reporters live and work around the world. Putting Stripes’ decision-makers somewhere on that sliding scale apart from the decision-makers at DMA is a worthwhile way to reinforce Stripes’ essential but hard to demonstrate editorial independence.
Gladiatorial also said, “You owe us, as tax-paying readers, a clear pros and cons analysis on why the Stars and Stripes should continue to burn through significant amounts of congressional funding that it can't afford from within its own revenues. Condoning your annual Press Building rental expense of $1 million, in what could be colored as a government subsidy, just to keep Stars and Stripes staff in a facility that gives a perception - not reality - of editorial independence is faulty argument.”
As I said in the column, I’m for a clear, thorough analysis, too — one that pins down the dollars, the consequences and the alternatives. Rather than my product, though, I’d say it should be a collaborative management effort by DMA and Stripes’ business and editorial leadership. And it should precede any final decision about this move.
A personal footnote, in answer to another point made by Gladitorial: The location doesn’t affect me very much personally. Most of my work is done by telecommuting. For those times when I will be in Stripes’ office, Fort Meade is a little farther drive than the National Press Building in DC, but not enough to make a big difference.
Keep those comments coming. Thanks.
