WASHINGTON — The New York Times filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Pentagon over restrictions on media coverage implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, alleging the new policy violates the constitutional rights of the outlet’s journalists.
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The New York Times filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Pentagon over restrictions on press implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, alleging the new policy violates the constitutional rights of the outlet’s journalists
Filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the suit argues that Defense officials are seeking to “fundamentally restrict coverage” by limiting the information journalists can obtain and publish without risking the revocation of their press badges and by blocking access to the Pentagon if reporters decline to abide by the constraints
Julian E. Barnes, a Times national security reporter and one of six of the paper’s journalists who turned in their Pentagon press passes rather than sign the policy, was listed as a plaintiff
“We are aware of the New York Times lawsuit and look forward to addressing these arguments in court,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote in a statement shared with Spectrum News
The news organization asked the federal court to find the policy unlawful and to reinstate its journalists’ press passes
Filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the suit argues that Defense Department officials are seeking to “fundamentally restrict coverage” by limiting the information journalists can obtain and publish without risking the revocation of their press badges and by blocking access to the Pentagon if reporters decline to agree to the constraints.
“The policy, in violation of the First Amendment, seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done—ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements,” the Times argued in the filing.
Julian E. Barnes, a Times national security reporter and one of six of the paper’s journalists who turned in their Pentagon press passes rather than sign the policy, was listed as a plaintiff.
Hegseth, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and the Defense Department, also called the Department of War, were named as defendants in the suit.
“We are aware of the New York Times lawsuit and look forward to addressing these arguments in court,” Parnell wrote in a statement shared with Spectrum News.
 
In the filing, the news organization asked the federal court to find the policy unconstitutional and to reinstate the press badges — known as Pentagon Facility Alternate Credentials, or PFACs — previously issued to the Times’ reporters.
The complaint argues that the policy’s “incurably vague language and lack of standards” allows the Pentagon to determine what constitutes a violation.
The Times also specifically cites a section in the 21-page form — which the outlet included as an exhibit in its filings — as targeting “lawful, routine newsgathering techniques” among its grounds for sanctions on reporters. The wording of the form states that “an advertisement or social media post” that solicits “non-public information without proper authorization” from Defense Department officials could lead to a journalist’s credentials being revoked.
The Times contended that the Pentagon imposed “increasingly stringent and unprecedented restrictions” on members of the press after Hegseth took office and cited reporting by Jeffrey Goldberg, an editor at The Atlantic who was inadvertently added to a group chat on the messaging platform Signal in March, as an inflection point. In the Signal chat, the defense secretary shared “sensitive, nonpublic” details about a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen using a personal phone, risking potential harm to U.S. personnel and their mission, the Pentagon’s inspector general said in its report on the incident released Thursday.
The Times’ complaint also noted that the Pentagon has welcomed what Parnell called the “next generation” of press, who have signed the document and the Times contends are “strongly supportive of the Trump administration and whose viewpoints the Department favors.”
“Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon,” Parnell said of some 60 media members who agreed to the Pentagon’s policy in October.
Most mainstream media outlets declined to sign the policy when it was announced earlier this year.
The Times reported that there had been discussions about other news organizations signing on as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, but the paper ultimately decided to proceed alone in its legal challenge to the Pentagon’s policy.
Separately, The Associated Press sued the Trump administration earlier this year after federal officials blocked its journalists from events reportedly in retaliation for the wire service not referring to the Gulf of Mexico by the name President Donald Trump gave it, the Gulf of America.