The US Department of Defense — newly renamed the Department of War by the Trump administration — has opted to wage its first war of the new era not on the battlefield but within the bowels of the Pentagon pressroom.
The department issued a memo to reporters, saying they would be required to sign a document pledging not to disclose either classified or “controlled unclassified information,” defining that as anything not formally authorized for publication. That’s pretty much the definition of what reporters — good reporters — actually do every day of the week.
They gather news from a variety of sources — including from inside the Pentagon — and bring that reporting through their respective media outlets to the American public.
Secretary Pete Hegseth would apparently prefer to turn a diverse and feisty press corps into a quiescent public relations operation designed to magnify his achievements — whatever they may be.
After several weeks of negotiations among news outlets, the Pentagon Press Association, and the administration failed to produce a compromise, more than a dozen of the nation’s major media outlets announced Monday that the regulations were simply unacceptable, contrary to their rights under the First Amendment, and that they had no intention of signing on.
Those outlets included the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, along with Newsmax and the Washington Times — the latter two among those generally friendly to the Trump administration.
By mid-day Tuesday they were joined by the nation’s major TV outlets, including Hegseth’s former bosses at Fox News.
Those not signing on to the untenable waiver of rights had 24 hours to surrender their media credentials and face banishment from the Pentagon itself. They lined up to do so.
NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News, along with the cable networks, said in a statement, “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the US military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.”
NPR’s Tom Bowman, a 28-year veteran of reporting from the Pentagon, wrote in an essay published Tuesday that “signing that document would make us stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable.”
As the deadline for signing neared, only the right-wing One America News had officially agreed to the arrangement. (The Globe does not have a Pentagon media credential.)
Those not signing on to the untenable waiver of rights proposed by Hegseth had 24 hours to surrender their media credentials and face banishment from the Pentagon itself. They lined up to do so Wednesday.
Hegseth responded to the news outlets’ refusal to sign the agreement throughout the day on X Monday with a waving hand “bye-bye” emoji.
“Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right,” he wrote on X. “So, here is @DeptofWar press credentialing FOR DUMMIES: Press no longer roams free. Press must wear visible badge. Credentialed press no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts. DONE. Pentagon now has same rules as every US military installation.”
Of course, “covering” the Pentagon these days isn’t what it used to be. A number of mainstream media outlets had already been ousted from their regularly assigned desks to make way for more Trump-friendly outlets, and media briefings have dwindled to a precious few. As of mid-day Tuesday, the latest press releases posted to the Pentagon’s website were from Sept. 30, along with the transcript of Hegseth’s speech to the military’s top brass called to Quantico that day.
The real scandal of this administration’s war on the media is the disrespect it shows for those hundreds of reporters who throughout the years — and throughout many wars — have risked and often lost their own lives reporting on this nation’s military from the field. Those embedded with military forces faced the same dangers as US soldiers but came armed with only a notebook or a camera. In the first months of the Iraq War, for example, at least 15 journalists lost their lives, including the Globe’s Elizabeth Neuffer. Before the war was over some 150 journalists and 54 support staffers would be killed covering the conflict, dwarfing the 66 killed during the Vietnam War.
