Media outlets, including MAGA channel Newsmax, refuse to sign Pentagon’s press access rules
The Pentagon is seen from above in Arlington
By Brian Stelter, CNN
(CNN) — The Pentagon is telling beat reporters to sign restrictive new rules by Tuesday or surrender their press passes by Wednesday. Many news organizations are rejecting the ultimatum and saying they will not sign.
The Pentagon Press Association, a body that represents the beat reporters, says the new policy championed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release.”
In a statement on Monday, the association said that “potential expulsion from the Pentagon should be a concern to all.”
In short, many reporters and their employers feel they can’t stomach the new restrictions, so many news outlets stand to lose physical access to the Pentagon complex — something that has been a standard part of Washington-area news coverage for decades.
Editors and reporters say they’ll continue to cover the US military thoroughly, with or without press credentials. Some well-known members of the Pentagon press corps have used the credentialing controversy to encourage tipsters to get in touch with them.
Representatives for CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and NPR have all said that journalists from their newsrooms are not signing the new paperwork about Pentagon access.
What about MAGA outlets?
Some partisan media outlets have also raised objections: Newsmax, the pro-Trump cable channel and website, said Monday that its reporters have no plans to sign either.
“We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon with review the matter further,” Newsmax said in a statement.
Fox News, which is the country’s largest pro-Trump media outlet by far, has not yet commented on the matter. Hegseth was a Fox News host for about a decade.
The Pentagon Press Association said Hegseth and other officials have been “systematically limiting access to information about the U.S. military” all year long.
Officials have stopped holding routine news briefings; they have booted many news outlets from Pentagon workspaces; and severely limited where reporters can go inside the building without an escort.
Analysts have connected these impediments to Hegseth’s well-documented disdain for the press and frustration with leaks.
The association said Monday that “this effort has culminated” in the rollout of “vague new policies that, on their face, appear to violate the First Amendment.”
While the policies were revised by Pentagon press aides after negotiations with news outlets, the updated language is still unacceptable to many newsroom leaders and media lawyers.
Possible legal action
Some news outlets are said to be contemplating legal action, but in the meantime, they’re publicly stating that the restrictions are, as Post executive editor Matt Murray said Monday, “unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information.”
The association said Monday that the Pentagon’s new language “is particularly problematic because it demands reporters to express an ‘understanding’ that harm inevitably flows from the disclosure of unauthorized information, classified or not — something everyone involved knows to be untrue.”
Hegseth has ridiculed some of the media concerns and embraced the dispute on social media. He claimed Monday that the new rules boiled down to three tenets: “Press no longer roams free,” “press must wear visible badge,” and “credentialed press no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts.” He also responded to several outlets’ statements on social media with an emoji waving goodbye.
Beat reporters responded on X by saying Hegseth was misleading the public. The press association said “longstanding press access rules posed no national security threat, which is why those rules continued without problem for decades, across multiple administrations of both political parties.”
Critics of the new rules perceive that the defense secretary’s real intent is to impede independent coverage and scrutiny of the Trump administration.
The dispute is ultimately about newsrooms striving to produce “trustworthy, independent journalism to the American public,” free of government influence, as NPR editor in chief Thomas Evans said in a statement Monday.
“We urge the Pentagon and the Administration to uphold freedom of the press and the American people’s right to know what is done in their name,” Evans said.
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