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Brass exiles Marine Corps Times to back of store, due to criticism of commandant?
In recent years, Marine Corps Times has been openly critical of current commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, which may have led to the paper’s removal from its easy access in base exchanges. (Photo credit: US Navy photo US Navy 100322-N-9818V-267)
The Marine Corps Times newspaper, which has long been displayed on register newsstands at base exchanges around the world, will now be relocated to less prominent locations in the back of stores.
Reasons for the move are cloudy, but some suspect it may have to do with the publication’s criticism of the commandant, four-star Gen. James F. Amos.
Meanwhile, Marine Corps officials said the move was done to “professionalize” the front area of exchanges and that the space would be “only authorized to display Marine Corps Exchange promotional materials.”
These would include, for instance, the commandant’s reading list and that of the “First Lady of the Marine Corps,” the commandant’s wife.
This was followed by a representative of the Marine Corps’ Semper Fit and Exchange Services Division telling the publication that it was not consistent with the Marine Corps “brand.”
MCT reports that their local distributors were advised that the move was due to poor sales, despite the fact that sales data shows that the MCT outperforms its rivals by a factor of 10 to 1.
The latest data shows that the paper enjoys a circulation of 35,000, which is small for a nationwide publication, but it is still very well respected.
Col. Steve Warren, representative for the Secretary of Defense, when asked about the Marine Corps Times controversy simply told the media Monday, “We’ll let the Marine Corps speak about their decisions.”
The Marine Corps Times is not funded or published directly by the military branch. A subsidiary of the Military Times Group owned by Gannett Government Media, it is outside the editorial control of the Corps’ leadership. As such, it is free to publish pieces that are critical of leadership or Marine Corps initiatives.
According to an exchange spokesperson, the Marine Corps Times is not consistent with the Marine Corps’ “brand.” (Photo credit: Gannett).
Several such pieces, targeting the commandant’s alleged abuse of authority to ensure Marines were punished for a video showing four scout snipers urinating on dead insurgents in Afghanistan, were published last year.
A source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the MCT that the new directive was approved with the commandant’s knowledge.
“It is no secret [in the Pentagon] that the commandant does not like Marine Corps Times,” the source added.
In an interview with Guns.com, Andrew deGranpre, Managing editor of Marine Corps Times expressed surprise by the decision to kick the publication from its long-held place inside base stores.
“I’m disappointed to say the least as is the vast majority of our newsroom,” said deGranpre. “This raises questions in the minds of marines and their families.”
“We have a vital function to the rank and file in the Corps as well as their families to cover not only subjects like career trends, new gear, and the next big deployment but also the responsibility to tell the tough stories,” he continued. ”This gives us the ability to tell the story the way it is, and not the way they want it to be.”
Marine Corps Times has long paid to have their publication displayed at registers in marine corps base exchanges around the world, even going so far as to have special racks built to hold the out-sized newspaper alongside more standard publications.
Perhaps, to make matters worse, it wasn’t the head shed who told the MCT that their paper was being relocated, but the publication’s local distributors who found out from the exchanges after the change in policy had been disseminated.
Marines, renowned for their skills at land navigation could have to spend more time searching for the Marine Corps Times in the future. (Photo credit: USMC)
DeGranpre feels that moving the paper from its traditional place has a fourfold impact on the publication. Not only will it limit access to the rank and file marine and their families, but also it will decrease the level of advocacy that the paper can bring to the Corps. Then there is an impact on the effect it will have on the transparency of leadership inside the Corps.
Finally, and most directly, it will affect the distributors of the paper themselves.
“Many of our distributors that fill those racks are active duty military, vets, or their spouses who are out working for an honest buck,” said deGranpre.
Marine Corps Times has won numerous awards, including the Associated Press Managing Editors Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Public Service for investigative journalism into substandard military body armor.
Additionally, MCT reporting staff were some of the first chosen to embed with U.S. troops in the field in Afghanistan in 2001.
The post Brass exiles Marine Corps Times to back of store, due to criticism of commandant? appeared first on Guns.com.
Source: http://www.guns.com/2014/02/10/brass-exiles-marine-corps-times-criticism-commandant/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=brass-exiles-marine-corps-times-criticism-commandant
I was an active-duty Marine when the Marine Corps Times became a paper, out from beneath the glare of the Navy Times. It used to be ‘uber-Corps’, very motivational, what ‘The Stars and Stripes’ was for the Army Air Force in WWII. It told you about everything from pending uniform changes, to potential rank changes and cutting scores.
BUT – the Marines I left when Slick Willie said ‘sure, all the gays can come on in’ in 1993 isn’t the Marine Corps that I was in, either. They will now vehemently kill their own countrymen without question from the orders of a usurper Kenyan. They are as thuggish and unthinking as any DHS black-suited ‘private army SWAT commando’ stationed in your local town. Don’t ever again think ‘the Marines are here to help us’, if they are there, you better run – something BAD is about to happen!
Think I’m bad-mouthing the Corps? Ask the Commandant what the order of faithfulness is. In 1990, and points earlier, there was a simple saying that all Marines knew – ‘GOD, Country, Corps’ (appended at the end with ‘, Family’ after 1990). As him today what the sequence of faithfulness is, and God doesn’t even make the list, per Marine Corps Orders. A military without accountability to God is a godless military capable of anything. Remember that, for they knew it when they removed him.