In a rare showing of unity across an ultra-divided political landscape, media conglomerates joined together weeks ago to fight back against authoritarian control from the Trump administration. Recent changes made to the Pentagon’s press policy significantly restricted the abilities of all reporters who had previously reported from the building, requiring them to sign a pledge not to obtain or publish anything not cleared by government higher-ups, even if it was unclassified, or risk losing their credentials.
This clear attack on freedom of the press sparked universal backlash from essentially all major news outlets, with legacy news networks on both sides of the political spectrum refusing to sign the new agreement. In a joint statement, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and Fox News said, “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.”
Refusal to comply with the new policy caused dozens of reporters to lose their access to the Pentagon entirely, access they had previously used to attend press briefings, meet with government officials and interview various sources.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called the move “common sense,” but it isn’t hard to see the actual goal of the refurbished policy: to create a wall between the military and the people, allowing for less public scrutiny on actions by the military. Regarding the change, Sean Parnell, the Chief Spokesperson of the Department of Defense, said via a post on X that “Journalists are not required to clear stories with [the Pentagon], they retain robust access… the only change is an overdue update to [the Pentagon’s] credentialing process.”
Yet, the need for government approval on all stories reported from the Pentagon remains a clearly stated requirement of the new policy. Both of these represent a clear trend being promoted by the Trump administration: to deceive, confuse and divert public attention in order to get what they want, a near-authoritarian regime. Parnell, in that same post on X, goes on to say that “Access to the Pentagon is a privilege, not a right.”
However, regardless of what Parnell might say, media access to the building is far from a privilege, as it is entirely funded by taxpayer dollars, and Americans deserve the right to know what their government is doing with their money. Extreme limitations on the ability to report like these leave the public in the dark.
It is both comforting and terrifying to see news organizations of all kinds come together against a single cause, and it shows how extreme this policy truly is. In accordance with the media, we as citizens must do our part, speaking out against clear violations of constitutional protections and not allowing ourselves to be drowned out by this administration. The more we turn a blind eye, the more the government will continue to encroach on our rights, and with compliance, those protections will be gone in no time. Silence is a dangerous precedent to set.
