Press Association Blasts New Pentagon Restrictions

Facing a deadline next week on whether to sign a statement acknowledging new restrictions on how they do their jobs or risk being thrown out of the Pentagon, journalists who cover the US military appear headed toward a showdown with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Negotiations over changing some of the restrictions "have not been as successful as we had hoped," the Pentagon Press Association said Wednesday.

• The rules limit where reporters can go without an official escort and convey "an unprecedented message of intimidation" for anyone in the Defense Department who might want to speak to a reporter without the approval of Hegseth's team, the association said in a statement.

• When the new policy was issued two weeks ago, news organizations were concerned that signing the rules conveyed agreement with them, including to a restriction that they not report on any news—even if unclassified—without official approval, the AP reports.
• The Pentagon is now saying it can't block journalists from reporting news but can revoke the credentials of reporters who ask anyone in the Defense Department for information without an official OK.
• "We acknowledge and appreciate that the Pentagon is no longer requiring reporters to express agreement with the new policy as a condition for obtaining press credentials," the press association said. "But the Pentagon is still asking us to affirm in writing our 'understanding' of policies that appear designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs."
• The association is not making any recommendations about whether members should or should not sign. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which has also been talking to the Pentagon about the policy, said it still has concerns and expects "that it will pose a significant impediment as journalists weigh with their employers whether or not to sign."

• Pentagon reporters have been operating under the same rules since the Eisenhower administration, including President Trump's first term in office, the association said, and any suggestion that they are prowling in offices where they are not allowed is preposterous. "If you want to move around the building, you're going to have a badge," Hegseth recently told Fox. The association said, "Pentagon reporters have always worn badges, and continue to do so to this day," CNN reports.
• Journalists from several news organizations, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post that they do not intend to sign the policy.
• "Limiting the media's ability to report on the US military fails to honor the American families who have entrusted their sons and daughters to serve in it, or the taxpayers responsible for giving the department hundreds of billions of dollars a year," the Pentagon Press Association said in its statement. "The American people deserve to know how their military is being run."