By Becket Adams
Sunday, October 19, 2025
It’s not every day that Fox News, the Daily Caller,
and the Washington Examiner find themselves on the same side as NPR,
CNN, and The Atlantic.
Then again, we’re not in everyday times.
More than 30 military and defense reporters turned over
their Pentagon credentials last week in protest of the Defense Department’s
updated media policy, which now threatens to revoke access for reporters who
solicit “non-public information.” More specifically, journalists are now warned
against encouraging DoD officials, either directly or generally, to share
anything whose disclosure could potentially “violate laws and policies concerning the disclosure of such
information.” An example of such expellable behavior, according to the new
guidelines, would include if a journalist or media outlet “directly targets
[department] personnel to disclose non-public information without proper
authorization.” Such an action would “constitute a solicitation that could lead
to revocation.”
Journalists were also asked to sign the revised policy in
a section that states the “signature represents my acknowledgement and
understanding of such [department] policies and procedures, even if I do not
agree with such policies and procedures.”
These requirements are obvious nonstarters for
journalists, as they are both unnecessarily restrictive and a direct obstacle
to the usual process of newsgathering. The revised policy is also contra the
purpose of reporting, which involves the pursuit of non-public information.
This is all to say: Secretary Pete Hegseth overstepped
here, possibly forgetting that journalism — even when some of its practitioners
are doing the job poorly, as I’ve frequently pointed out — is not an obstacle
to be overcome but a necessary public service in a country with an ostensibly
civilian-run military.
Hegseth, for his part, maintains the revisions are merely
“common-sense.”
“It used to be,” he said last week, “the press could go
pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon, the most classified area in the world.
Also, if they sign onto the credentialing, they’re not going to try to get
soldiers to break the law by giving them classified information. . . . We’re
trying to make sure national security is respected, and we’re proud of the
policy.”
Asked for comment, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell
said in a statement that news outlets had previously “expressed their
gratitude” for the new procedures, but “at the last minute, they have decided
to move the goal post and refuse to sign the policy because of a single issue:
a line that says they ‘understand’ what our policies are.” He continued: “This
has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We
stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national
security of this country.”
Among the newsrooms that have refused to sign the revised
policy are not just mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, the New
York Times, and the Associated Press, but also right-leaning organizations,
including the Washington Times and Newsmax, whose founder, Chris Ruddy, is a longtime Trump
ally. To date, the only persons or organizations to have signed the agreement
are the Epoch Times, One America News, The Federalist,
AWPS News, the India Globe, USA Journal Korea, an Afghan
freelancer, two Turkish freelancers, and a handful of staffers from private and
state-run Turkish media agencies, according to the Washington Post.
Hegseth “thinks he is ridding himself of the ‘meddlesome’
press corps,” a current member of the Pentagon press corps told me, arguing the
new guidelines, which they characterized as poorly conceived, will only make it
more difficult for independent, truth-seeking journalism.
“Journalists will still cover the Pentagon,” added the
source, who requested anonymity so as not to be mistaken for speaking on behalf
of their publication, which refused to sign the new policy. “It’s just now it’s
like any closed federal agency where you can’t roam the halls. The Pentagon now
resembles the CIA: closed off, no access except for staged briefings.”
Additional language in the policy revision states that
any journalist wishing to leave the areas preapproved for media, which have
been drawn down considerably from their previous limits, for “in-person
interviews” or “other engagements” must be accompanied at all times by an
authorized Department of Defense representative. This represents a significant
shift from the previous 70-plus years, when journalists were allowed to operate
with exceptional freedom within the Pentagon, including the freedom to navigate
its nearly 17 miles of hallways (with obvious exceptions, of course).
Early drafts of the revised policy also included language
suggesting the department would require journalists to seek preapproval for
stories. Unsurprisingly, this since-amended language was met with a chilly
reception.
For the reporters who walked out last week, the escort
requirements and the initial draft language regarding preapproval weren’t even
the worst of it. The two key sticking points are the signature requirement and
the language regarding the solicitation of tips.
“The final straw was a policy saying journalists must not
‘solicit information’ they weren’t supposed to have,” said a Pentagon reporter
who has covered the five-pointed palace since the days of the Gulf War. “But
that’s the entire function of journalism; learning what government doesn’t want
you to know. If we only rewrote press releases, there’d be no point in having a
press corps at all.”
This language does indeed pose a problem for journalists,
and you don’t have to be a reporter with decades of experience covering the
Pentagon to see it. If reporters at the DoD are allowed only to receive and
report preapproved information that is already marked for public consumption,
then isn’t that indeed just a longer way of saying they’re allowed only to
report on press releases? Isn’t that just a longer way of saying they are
allowed only to report what the department allows them to report? Then, of course,
there’s the extraordinary leeway the language allows the department in
determining who has run afoul of the solicitation rules, which, based on the
language itself, may or may not include something as innocuous as “What is the
secretary doing?” What if, at that moment, the secretary is engaged in
classified operations? A department bureaucrat with an axe to grind could
justify expelling a journalist for something as simple as this, using the
language of the new guidelines as justification. (That guidelines may be abused
is not a particularly strong argument against new guidelines. Still, this
doesn’t negate the main fact that the new guidelines are, as Newsmax put it, “unnecessary and onerous.”)
As for the signature requirement, a Pentagon reporter
characterized it as a “trap.”
“They tell you, ‘You violated what you acknowledged,’”
the source said. “You say, ‘I didn’t agree.’ They answer, ‘You said you
understood.’ Understanding versus agreeing is a distinction without a
difference when they hold the badge printer. It’s entrapment through semantics.
“We debated staying inside to ‘test-drive’ enforcement,”
the person added, “but the act of signing itself legitimized the policy. If
they’d merely announced the policy without requiring signatures, more might
have stayed to see how it played. But after everything else, from revoking desk
spaces to publicly insulting and attacking [Fox News’s] Jennifer Griffin simply
for asking for a response to Democratic criticisms, it’s unbelievable to
believe they’d exercise restraint. Hegseth personally attacked [Griffin].
That’s the atmosphere now.”
Though the loss of access and sourcing opportunities is
surely a large part of the press’s negative reaction to the revised policy, the
larger and more pressing complaint is that it will make it harder for watchdogs
to hold the department accountable.
“This system produced real accountability: stories about
the Walter Reed scandal, or delays in delivering mine-resistant vehicles to
Afghanistan,” a Pentagon reporter told me, “stories that literally saved lives
and improved operations. Every defense secretary who left office would remark
on the uniqueness of that relationship.”
One can’t help but wonder whether the current department
believes there should’ve been recriminations and access revocation for the
journalists who uncovered that the Biden Defense Department lied in 2022 during
the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal when it claimed that it had eliminated
several ISIS terrorists in a “righteous strike.” In reality, the Biden DoD had
incinerated an Afghan aid worker and nine members of his family, including
seven children, and we know this only because reporters pursued the story like a dog with a bone.
“In my decades, no administration ever demanded anything
like this,” the Pentagon reporter said. “It’s a shame. The only other place you
can still roam is Capitol Hill, where you can catch members in corridors. The
Pentagon used to be unique. A totally American thing. No other country did it.
It showcased a military-media relationship with roots in World War II. That
tradition is now dead.”
From a journalism standpoint, the Pentagon’s revised
media policy is untenable. It’s in opposition to the entire purpose of the
trade.
From a limited government standpoint, it seems
inconsistent to be wary of the military-industrial complex and then make it
harder for the journalists who cover the military-industrial complex to report
independently.
Lastly, from a populist-nationalist standpoint, it seems
ill-advised for the U.S. defense secretary to have created a situation where
American reporters are expelled from the Pentagon in favor of foreign
nationals, including those from Turkish state-run media.
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