News outlets prepare fight against Pentagon’s demand for press to sign ‘pledge’ restricting reporting

By Brian Stelter, CNN

(CNN) — Media lawyers and newsroom leaders are evaluating a government memo spelling out new rules that would sharply restrict reporting at the Pentagon.

Several of the country’s biggest news outlets are publicly pushing back on the rules, foreshadowing a potential legal battle.

“This policy operates as a prior restraint on publication, which is considered the most serious of First Amendment violations,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told CNN.

The policy leverages the fact that many reporters who cover the US military have press credentials that allow physical access to the Pentagon complex.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s press office has already booted some news outlets, including CNN, from media workspaces and made key parts of the building off-limits to journalists without an official escort.

Now, according to the new policy, beat reporters with a Pentagon credential will have to sign a pledge not to obtain or use unauthorized material — even though, as Stern said, “The Supreme Court has made clear for decades that journalists are entitled to lawfully obtain and publish government secrets. That is essentially the job description of an investigative journalist.”

But the new policy will turn that act into a cause for revoking press credentials.

“Asking independent journalists to submit to these kinds of restrictions is at stark odds with the constitutional protections of a free press in a democracy,” a spokesperson for The New York Times said in response.

The Times called the policy “yet another step in a concerning pattern of reducing access to what the U.S. military is undertaking at taxpayer expense.”

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal also issued statements criticizing the policy. And Thomas Evans, the editor-in-chief of NPR, said, “We’ll be working with other news organizations to push back.”

It is unclear what form that response will take.

When the new rules were sent via email to reporters on Friday, Hegseth wrote on X that members of the media could “wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”

But the Pentagon press corps “already had to wear credentials and routinely has signed ground rules as needed,” Washington Post reporter Dan Lamothe responded. “What the Pentagon press corps has not done before is agreed to a policy that only published pre-approved talking points.”

Numerous Democratic lawmakers decried the new policy over the weekend. One Republican legislator, Don Bacon, also chimed in, saying, “This is so dumb that I have a hard time believing it is true.”

Bacon, who is leaving Congress next year, wrote on X, “We don’t want a bunch of Pravda newspapers only touting the Government’s official position. A free press makes our country better. This sounds like more amateur hour.”

When a reporter at the White House tried to ask President Trump about the policy on Sunday, Trump did not seem to be on the same page as Hegseth.

Trump was asked, “Should the Pentagon be in charge of deciding what reporters can report on?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Trump said. “Listen, nothing stops reporters. You know that.”

The-CNN-Wire
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