Stars and Stripes. For now, or forever?

The Fiscal Year 2021 budget request released by the Pentagon in February eliminates all government funding for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper.

Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, as reported by many outlets, including The Hill, said at a press conference that that the department "essentially decided coming into the modern age that newspaper is probably not the best way we communicate any longer.”

According to Ms. McCusker, as reported by Stew Magnuson in the March issue of National Defense, newspapers aren’t necessarily the best way to deliver information in the modern age.

I’ve run into the same kind of inside the beltway myopia myself.   I deployed as a contractor.  When I got home, an auditor tried to bust my chops because I wasn’t logging in and reporting my hours every day. 

I kept track of them in an Excel spreadsheet.  I was in the desert.  A place called Iraq.  There were no internet cafés.  The auditor didn’t understand and insisted on writing me up.

Even though I was far from a newsstand, or the internet, I still got my hands on a Stars and Stripes regularly.  Perhaps Elaine should reconsider her position.