Three current Pentagon officials decried a new War Department policy designed to restrict press freedom.\u00a0Under new rules, the Department of War said it would forbid reporters from gathering any information that had not been approved for release and would revoke press credentials from any journalists who did not obey.<\/p>\n
A 17-page document laying out the new guidelines says that journalists who wish to report from the Pentagon must sign agreements restricting their movement in the building and stipulating that they will not obtain or possess unauthorized material.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust,\u201d the department\u2019s Orwellian memorandum states.<\/p>\n
Experts and current Pentagon officials call the rules an egregious assault on the freedom of the press.<\/p>\n
One defense official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity called the new policy a \u201cmockery of American ideals.\u201d\u00a0 Another likened it to policies seen in some of the most repressive and unstable nations on the planet. \u201cThe idea they want editorial control over the press is something I expect from a banana republic not the United States,\u201d that official told The Intercept. A third said it was Secretary of War Pete Hegseth\u2019s latest assault on accountability, referencing his earlier efforts to kneecap the military\u2019s lawyers<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military,\u201d National Press Club President Mike Balsamo said\u00a0in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIf the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting. It is getting only what officials want them to see. That should alarm every American.\u201d<\/p>\n In a Friday\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0on X.com, Hegseth said that \u201cthe press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility,\u201d and that reporters would have to \u201cwear a badge and follow the rules \u2014 or go home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of War responded to questions about the new policy from The Intercept with a boilerplate statement. \u201cThese are basic, common-sense guidelines to protect sensitive information as well as the protection of national security and the safety of all who work at the Pentagon,\u201d said chief War Department spokesman Sean Parnell.<\/p>\n \u201cAgreeing not to look where the government doesn\u2019t want you to look and, by extension, not to print what it doesn\u2019t want you to print, is propaganda, not journalism,\u201d Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation,\u00a0told The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government isn\u2019t only seeking to restrain specific documents it contends pose a unique threat, it\u2019s seeking to restrain everything it doesn\u2019t want the public to know.\u201d<\/p>\n Stern noted that the government is legally barred from requiring journalists to trade their right to investigate the government in exchange for reporting access. <\/p>\n \u201cThis policy operates as a prior restraint on publication which is considered the most serious of First Amendment violations. As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the government cannot prohibit journalists from public information merely by claiming it\u2019s a secret or even a national security threat,\u201d Stern said, referencing a landmark 1971 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of the New York Times\u00a0and others to publish a classified Defense Department study of the Vietnam War. \u201cThis is worse in a way, because the government isn\u2019t only seeking to restrain specific documents it contends pose a unique threat, it\u2019s seeking to restrain everything it doesn\u2019t want the public to know. That is fundamentally unAmerican.\u201d<\/p>\n Hegseth\u2019s Pentagon pledged<\/a> earlier this year to \u201calways deliver on our promise of transparency.\u201d In February, Hegseth\u00a0booted several mainstream news<\/a> organizations\u00a0from their offices at the Pentagon, including CNN, NPR, the New York Times,\u00a0and the Washington Post, in favor of conservative mouthpieces, like Breitbart, Newsmax, and One America News.<\/p>\n While not specifying any outlets by name, the defense official who said the new policy mocked American ideals expressed worry that some reporters would self-censor to curry favor with the War Department. \u201cSome of these so-called journalists are a joke,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n Balsamo noted that the latest media crackdown \u201ccomes at a time when the nation is witnessing a devastating hollowing out of defense trade publications, just as rigorous, independent coverage of military and national security issues has never been more essential.\u201d<\/p>\n Regular press briefings by the Pentagon press secretary or his deputy \u2013 a staple of previous years \u2013 have been abandoned in favor of propaganda pumped out by Hegseth<\/a>, Parnell<\/a>, and press secretary<\/a> Kingsley Wilson<\/a>.\u00a0 Wilson repeatedly replies to questions from The Intercept with variations<\/a> on the phrase: \u201cNothing for you on that<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Early in his tenure, Hegseth shared classified information<\/a> about forthcoming air strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife. He also\u00a0disclosed attack plans<\/a>\u00a0in a separate Signal chat that\u00a0included the editor of The Atlantic<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pentagon was\u00a0also embarrassed by a leak<\/a>\u00a0to the New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk would receive a briefing on the military\u2019s war plans concerning China. That briefing was called off and led to an investigation.<\/p>\n The new press policy coincides with the Department of War\u2019s political correctness crusade<\/a> in the wake of the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. The military is taking disciplinary action against both enlisted troops and officers over social media posts they view as taking the wrong stance on Kirk\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Pentagon\u2019s actions are part of an all-out war on freedom of speech<\/a> by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump recently filed a\u00a0$15 billion defamation suit<\/a>\u00a0against the New York Times \u2014 which a federal judge threw out Friday,\u00a0calling the complaint<\/a>\u00a0\u201cimproper and impermissible\u201d in its current form. Trump\u00a0also sued<\/a>\u00a0the Wall Street Journal in July for an article chronicling his relationship with the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n Trump previously sued CBS News and ABC News over their coverage of him, extracting $16 million settlements from each. This week, ABC apparently bowed to threats<\/a> from chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr<\/a> over remarks that Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>, the host of ABC\u2019s \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live,\u201d had made in the wake of Kirk\u2019s killing. The network pulled Kimmel\u2019s late-night show from the air \u201cindefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n Stern said that the Trump administration, like its predecessors, often leans on vague national security claims to avoid having lies exposed.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps there are so many embarrassing documents at this point that it\u2019s too difficult to keep finding bogus reasons to keep each of them secret,\u201d Stern said. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why the administration is taking more of a wholesale approach to concealing records that may show wrongdoing, corruption and incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three current Pentagon officials decried a new War Department policy designed to restrict press freedom.\u00a0Under new rules, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,36904,103111,36911,29309,3,36903,36908,36909,36910,103114,103112,21,19,22,20,25,24,103113],"class_list":{"0":"post-172580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-article-type-article-post","10":"tag-day-sunday","11":"tag-language-english","12":"tag-medium","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-page-type-article","15":"tag-partner-factiva","16":"tag-partner-smart-news","17":"tag-partner-social-flow","18":"tag-subject-national-security","19":"tag-time-16-00","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-wc-1000-1999"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Become a member
\n <\/a><\/p>\n
\n Become a member
\n <\/a><\/p>\n