Throwing Them Out
The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to muzzle national security reporting. It isn’t working.
For CJR’s special issue on access, I put together a timeline showing how the Pentagon has forced journalists out of the building, stripping away the protections necessary for reporters to keep the military in check. Just this week—with the United States at war—the Department of Defense (or Department of War, if you’re Pete Hegseth) declared the Pentagon press office to be a “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility,” or SCIF, and said this was a measure to protect the classified material handled by speechwriters. “As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space,” Joel Valdez, the acting Pentagon press secretary, told the Washington Post.
This heightened level of restriction has been in the making since Hegseth took office—and news outlets have pushed back. Thanks to a lawsuit filed by the New York Times, the Pentagon’s attempts to skirt the First and Fifth Amendments face a serious challenge. And on Wednesday, two members of the advisory board of Stars and Stripes, an independent military newspaper that receives DOD funding, sued the Pentagon, accusing it of violating the First Amendment through its efforts to expand control of the publication to rid it of alleged “woke distractions.” Below, you’ll find some notable moments we’ve pulled from the issue timeline—recent highs and lows of Pentagon reporting.
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
Democracy and politics | Signalgate | The CBS submission | Voiceless America
Related Knowledge Center: Free speech and public protest
The First Amendment is facing challenging times: Crackdowns on campus protests prompted both-sides claims of intolerance. Attempts to head off dangerous health misinformation have been characterized as violations of free speech. Donald Trump is publicly punishing news outlets that deviate from his administration’s version of events while privately suing some outlets into submission.
The White House vs. the press | Voiceless America