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The publisher of Stars and Stripes has announced his retirement after nearly two decades in the job, saying his understanding of the paper’s mission differs in fundamental ways from what the Defense Department now wants from it.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, Stars and Stripes is a news organization that traces back to the Civil War and has covered the military without a break since World War II, mostly for troops stationed overseas. Its staff are Defense Department employees and about half of what it runs on is Pentagon money, but an arrangement dating to 1994 keeps it editorially independent, and its mission statement says the paper is “editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command” and “governed by the principles of the First Amendment.” Congress also mandated an ombudsman specifically to protect that independence. During Trump’s first term the Pentagon tried to zero out the paper’s funding before Trump said he would not cut it “under my watch.”

What’s going on now: Max D. Lederer Jr., who has run the organization since 2007 and been with it since 1992, is out effective Sept. 30. He told staff it had “become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization.” He put it more directly in an interview with his own paper.

“I think the right step is for me to step down, get out of the way, and let different leadership step in and continue to make this, the great organization that it is, even better,” he said.

His specific objection is the March modernization memo, eight pages that require content to be consistent with “good order and discipline,” language pulled straight out of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, kill off comics and other syndicated material, cut way back on how much wire copy the paper can run including AP, and push every print product over to digital. That last part is what he keeps returning to.

“I don’t feel that there’s a full recognition of the value of multiple platforms versus only a digital platform,” said Lederer, “There is value to being able to have a monthly magazine or an annual magazine for people who are in a transitional environment.” He said the paper should be moving into AI and other technology, just not at “the pace and the direction” the Pentagon is setting.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced changes to the outlet back in January, saying, “Stars and Stripes will be custom tailored to our warfighters. It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.” He said the department would refocus the paper away from “woke distractions that syphon morale.”

This comes after Stars and Stripes was one of only two military papers to run reporting on morale falling apart and sailors attempting suicide on the USS Abraham Lincoln, which left port in November, went to the coast of Venezuela, got redirected toward Iran, and has now broken the Navy record for time deployed without a port call.

Trump has downplayed those reports and floated the idea that reporters covering what the military is going through are traitors rooting against their own country.