The Pentagon, the Press and the Fight to Control National Security Coverage
Imagine for a moment that the Defense Department’s new demand for a “pledge” from Pentagon reporters — a commitment not to publish even unclassified but sensitive information, except what press officers approve, under threat of losing their press passes — had existed during the botched evacuation of American personnel from Afghanistan four years ago.
Reporters would have been under pressure to cover that withdrawal, which President Trump regularly describes as the most disastrous moment in American military history, as the Pentagon would have wanted it depicted: a heroic airlift, amid chaos. The reporters who revealed the disastrous drone strike during the evacuation that killed 10 civilians, contradicting the Biden administration’s initial insistence that it was a “righteous strike,” could have been in danger of losing their military press credentials.
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