Colonel ‘Managed’ News, Report Says
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WASHINGTON — A Pentagon report released Tuesday said that the Air Force colonel who resigned last week as editor of the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper violated military regulations by manipulating the paper’s news content.
Col. Edwin J. Montgomery resigned Friday, citing the report by ombudsman Philip Foisie.
The Defense Department hired Foisie last year to assess the flow of information to the military readership of the Toyko-based Pacific Stars and Stripes and its European sister publication based near Frankfurt, West Germany.
Montgomery had said he was disappointed that Foisie viewed his editing practices as “news management” but was pleased he had not been accused of censorship.
In his report, Foisie said that the editing process at Pacific Stars and Stripes under Montgomery was “seriously flawed” but that there was no censorship in the sense of readers being systematically deprived of any specific type of news.
“In my professional judgment, Col. Montgomery has too often infringed on the common practice of good journalism,” Foisie wrote.
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