Media legal professionals and newsroom leaders are evaluating a authorities memo spelling out new guidelines that will sharply limit reporting on the Pentagon.
Several of the nation’s greatest information outlets are publicly pushing again on the principles, foreshadowing a possible authorized 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 on the Freedom of the Press Foundation, advised NCS.
The coverage leverages the truth that many reporters who cowl the US navy have press credentials that permit bodily entry to the Pentagon advanced.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s press workplace has already booted some information outlets, together with NCS, from media workspaces and made key components of the constructing off-limits to journalists with out an official escort.
Now, in accordance to the brand new coverage, beat reporters with a Pentagon credential can have to sign a pledge not to get hold of or use unauthorized materials — regardless that, as Stern stated, “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 brand new coverage will flip that act right into a trigger 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 stated in response.
The Times known as the coverage “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 additionally issued statements criticizing the coverage. And Thomas Evans, the editor-in-chief of NPR, stated, “We’ll be working with other news organizations to push back.”
It is unclear what kind that response will take.
When the brand new guidelines had been despatched by way of e-mail to reporters on Friday, Hegseth wrote on X that members of the media might “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 brand new coverage over the weekend. One Republican legislator, Don Bacon, additionally chimed in, saying, “This is so dumb that I have a hard time believing it is true.”
Bacon, who’s leaving Congress subsequent 12 months, 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 on the White House tried to ask President Trump concerning the coverage on Sunday, Trump didn’t appear to be on the identical web page as Hegseth.
Trump was requested, “Should the Pentagon be in charge of deciding what reporters can report on?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Trump stated. “Listen, nothing stops reporters. You know that.”