Three current Pentagon officials decried a new War Department policy designed to restrict press freedom. Under 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.
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.
“DoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust,” the department’s Orwellian memorandum states.
Experts and current Pentagon officials call the rules an egregious assault on the freedom of the press.
One defense official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity called the new policy a “mockery of American ideals.” Another likened it to policies seen in some of the most repressive and unstable nations on the planet. “The idea they want editorial control over the press is something I expect from a banana republic not the United States,” that official told The Intercept. A third said it was Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s latest assault on accountability, referencing his earlier efforts to kneecap the military’s lawyers.
“This is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military,” National Press Club President Mike Balsamo said in a statement. “If 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.”
In a Friday post on X.com, Hegseth said that “the press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility,” and that reporters would have to “wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”
The Department of War responded to questions about the new policy from The Intercept with a boilerplate statement. “These 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,” said chief War Department spokesman Sean Parnell.
“Agreeing not to look where the government doesn’t want you to look and, by extension, not to print what it doesn’t want you to print, is propaganda, not journalism,” Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, told The Intercept.
“The government isn’t only seeking to restrain specific documents it contends pose a unique threat, it’s seeking to restrain everything it doesn’t want the public to know.”
Stern noted that the government is legally barred from requiring journalists to trade their right to investigate the government in exchange for reporting access.
“This 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’s a secret or even a national security threat,” Stern said, referencing a landmark 1971 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of the New York Times and others to publish a classified Defense Department study of the Vietnam War. “This is worse in a way, because the government isn’t only seeking to restrain specific documents it contends pose a unique threat, it’s seeking to restrain everything it doesn’t want the public to know. That is fundamentally unAmerican.”
Hegseth’s Pentagon pledged earlier this year to “always deliver on our promise of transparency.” In February, Hegseth booted several mainstream news organizations from their offices at the Pentagon, including CNN, NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, in favor of conservative mouthpieces, like Breitbart, Newsmax, and One America News.
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. “Some of these so-called journalists are a joke,” the official said.
Balsamo noted that the latest media crackdown “comes 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.”
Regular press briefings by the Pentagon press secretary or his deputy – a staple of previous years – have been abandoned in favor of propaganda pumped out by Hegseth, Parnell, and press secretary Kingsley Wilson. Wilson repeatedly replies to questions from The Intercept with variations on the phrase: “Nothing for you on that.”
Early in his tenure, Hegseth shared classified information about forthcoming air strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife. He also disclosed attack plans in a separate Signal chat that included the editor of The Atlantic.
The Pentagon was also embarrassed by a leak to the New York Times that billionaire Elon Musk would receive a briefing on the military’s war plans concerning China. That briefing was called off and led to an investigation.
The new press policy coincides with the Department of War’s political correctness crusade 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’s legacy.
The Pentagon’s actions are part of an all-out war on freedom of speech by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump recently filed a $15 billion defamation suit against the New York Times — which a federal judge threw out Friday, calling the complaint “improper and impermissible” in its current form. Trump also sued the Wall Street Journal in July for an article chronicling his relationship with the disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
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 from chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr over remarks that Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” had made in the wake of Kirk’s killing. The network pulled Kimmel’s late-night show from the air “indefinitely.”
Stern said that the Trump administration, like its predecessors, often leans on vague national security claims to avoid having lies exposed.
“Perhaps there are so many embarrassing documents at this point that it’s too difficult to keep finding bogus reasons to keep each of them secret,” Stern said. “Maybe that’s why the administration is taking more of a wholesale approach to concealing records that may show wrongdoing, corruption and incompetence.”
