Several news organizations, including The New York Times, NPR and Newsmax, are refusing to sign a new set of restrictions on news gathering inside the Pentagon.
Under the policy, reporters must pledge not to gather information that has not been authorized for release by the Defense Department. Without agreeing to the new rules, reporters at the Pentagon will have to turn in their press passes by Wednesday evening.
Lawyers representing the news organizations say the new rules violate the First Amendment and could put reporters in jeopardy for conducting routine news gathering.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik discusses what this means for reporting on the U.S. military.
4 questions with David Folkenflik
Tell us a little bit more about these Pentagon media rules that almost every news organization is opposing.
“There are three main parts. One is people will have to wear prominent badges. Journalists point out they already do have to wear badges visible at all times. They’re going to cut out even more access. Well, the Pentagon has already narrowed where reporters can go within the Pentagon. It’s going to be more restrictive.
“The third one and most compelling is that reporters can’t report or gather information that the Pentagon doesn’t want released. And I think it’s important to point out, this would even apply to information that’s not classified, that’s not top secret in some way. And news organizations say, ‘Hey, that’s essentially a form of prior restraint.’ So that’s so objectionable.
“You’re seeing an extraordinary swath of news organizations just reject it outright. You see Newsmax, which are right-wing outfits, say, ‘we’re not gonna sign on to that.’ Fox News is expected to join with other broadcast and TV outlets in rejecting that. Really, almost no one’s going for it except the right-wing, almost pro-Trump propaganda outlet, OAN.”
You have reported that this follows several moves against the media by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Walk us through a couple of those.
“ [Hegseth] came to office promising the most transparent Pentagon in American history, and it’s been anything but. He’s only had a couple of briefings. You have almost no background briefings by senior Pentagon officials expressing things. They have, as I’ve mentioned, really tightened access to where people can go to just get background briefings, have conversations where things are explained to them, or unpacked for them. Not even secrets, just saying, ‘Well, this is what that means,’ or ‘Here’s what that is technically about,’ about a certain development.
“And you saw Hegseth, in fact, implement lie detector tests for senior Pentagon officials that he had thought had leaked information early in his tenure. So, you know, this is an effort by the secretary really to consolidate and control information from getting out.”
Several news organizations say that under these rules, they could be punished for routine reporting. How?
“There’s the concern that if you were to sign up for this, that you would be in a sense exceeding to the Pentagon’s interpretation of what would be a violation of policy, but also with implications that somehow you were acknowledging that perhaps you were compromising national security. Major news organizations, reporters covering the Pentagon would argue anything but that. They help national security by explaining to Americans what the Pentagon is doing in our name, with our tax dollars, and to our fellow citizens who serve under them.”
If news organizations do not sign onto this policy by Tuesday night, their reporters will lose their media badges and access to the Pentagon on Wednesday. Is that worth it? Wouldn’t that make reporting there even harder?
“I think they think that doing sort of independent reporting would be harder, where they to hold onto those badges and lose access to their sources, lose access to their independence, and the idea that reporters are allowing government officials to dictate what they can and can’t ask for, what they can and can’t ask about, what they can and can’t report would be compromising their status of trying to tell the truth as best they can determine it independently of folks like Pete Hegseth.
“And I think, to be honest, given the range of folks who have rejected this, Hegseth looks something weaker than he did, even though he looks like he’s taking a hard line against the press. There’s been almost uniform rejection of his authority to do this. And there’s a potential for this to end up in court, you know, assuming he perseveres.”
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Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Mark Navin. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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