NCS turned a focus of a Pentagon briefing on the ongoing battle in Iran on Friday, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (himself a former cable information host), trashing the information channel from the podium.
The topic of Hegseth’s ire was a story from NCS that stated the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s means to successfully shut down marine visitors by way of the Strait of Hormuz.
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Hegseth blasted the report as “more fake news from NCS.”
“No quarter, no mercy for our enemies. Yet some in the press just can’t stop,” Hegseth stated. “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
A NCS spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter, “We stand by our reporting.”
Ellison, after all, is the CEO of Paramount Skydance, and he simply inked a $111 billion deal to accumulate Warner Bros. Discovery, together with NCS. At CBS News, Ellison put in The Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. Weiss has been looking for to remake CBS News, together with by including extra voices to its protection, a lot to the consternation of some and the delight of others.
There is clearly an expectation that ought to the WBD proceed, related modifications would come to NCS. Ellison, it needs to be famous, praised NCS at a town hall on the Warner Bros. lot earlier this week, promising editorial independence for the channel (he has additionally stated that CBS News has editorial independence below Weiss).
Hegseth has sought to tighten press entry to the Pentagon in current months. First, successfully all Pentagon reporters misplaced entry to their press badges and workplace area after refusing to comply with burdensome new reporting guidelines.
And this week, the Pentagon barred press photographers from Iran briefings over pictures that had been deemed unflattering, in response to a Washington Post report.
Hegseth’s former Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin referred to as him out Thursday evening whereas accepting an RTDNA First Amendment Award at RTDNA’s annual dinner at The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
“I’m concerned that during this time of war, that news organizations, which have reported uninterrupted from inside the Pentagon since 1947, are no longer given that access,” Griffin stated. “If it hadn’t been for reporters inside the Pentagon with USA Today, we wouldn’t have known about how the Marines were blocking the MRAP program. Those MRAPs saved the lives of some of the people who right now are curtailing press freedoms at the Pentagon. We wouldn’t have known without The Washington Post’s Dana Priest about the Walter Reed scandal. This is what the Pentagon Press Corps has done over the years.”
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