Jill Aitoro

Jill Aitoro is editor of Defense News. She is also executive editor of Sightline Media’s Business-to-Government group, including Defense News, C4ISRNET, Federal Times and Fifth Domain. She brings over 15 years’ experience in editing and reporting on defense and federal programs, policy, procurement, and technology.


  • 30 Years: Virtual Reality — Training Transformation
    30 Years: Virtual Reality — Training Transformation

    The gaming industry gets a lot of credit for expanding virtual reality from concept to, well, reality. But it was Tom Furness who, in 1982, presented the Air Force with his first working model of a virtual flight simulator he called the Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator, or VCASS. That was followed by Furness’s “Super…

  • 30 Years: The Internet — A Networked World
    30 Years: The Internet — A Networked World

    For many, the digital explosion came by way of the World Wide Web — a specific set of protocols available to anyone with an internet connection. But before Tim Berners-Lee could write the first web browser computer program, he needed the foundation. And that came from DARPA more than a decade earlier.

  • 30 Years: Networked Systems — Defense Architecture Goes Global
    30 Years: Networked Systems — Defense Architecture Goes Global

    Network-centric systems relying on mass capabilities rather than individual systems continue to grow in sophistication and complexity.

  • Honoring Three Decades in Defense
    Honoring Three Decades in Defense

    Since Our First Issue in 1986, ‘All is Flux, Nothing Stays the Same’

  • Greece Defense Official: Contest Treaty, Contest EU Borders
    Greece Defense Official: Contest Treaty, Contest EU Borders

    In an interview with Defense News, Greece Deputy Defense Minister Dimitris Vitsas responds to controversial remarks from Turkey’s president Erdogan, as well as NATO concerns about Greece’s friendly relations with Moscow.

  • Korea Defense Industry Association to US: ‘We Have New Needs to Develop Together’
    Korea Defense Industry Association to US: ‘We Have New Needs to Develop Together’

    Kim Young Hoo, executive vice chairman of Korea Defense Industry Association, called for a more ‘mutually beneficial’ relationship with US military and defense companies in an interview with Defense News.

  • Harris CEO Bill Brown on a Very Good Year
    Harris CEO Bill Brown on a Very Good Year

    In February 2015, when Harris first announced its plans to acquire fellow defense company Exelis, CEO Bill Brown called the deal transformational. Nearly 16 months after the deal close, it’s fair to say that’s true.

  • Tensions Heightened: Ukraine takes on Russia
    Tensions Heightened: Ukraine takes on Russia

    To Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine ambassador to the US, Russia’s tactics in Crimea are not occupation. They’re acts of war.

  • A Partnership Between Russia and the West? Here’s Why It’s Not Happening
    A Partnership Between Russia and the West? Here’s Why It’s Not Happening

    A union forged against a common threat, reminiscent of Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, would be a political quagmire.

  • Introducing the New DefenseNews.com
    Introducing the New DefenseNews.com

    We’ve updated our site to provide you with an enhanced user experience – cleaner design, improved navigation, more multimedia content – without sacrificing the in-depth news coverage of the global defense market that our audience has come to expect.