Tiny iPhone Fingers? Seriously?
Defense Secretary and erstwhile Fox News personality Pete Hegseth has been putting the screws to mainstream media almost from the day he took over. So, for example, the department held only one formal press briefing in the first hundred days of this Trump term. Meanwhile, news organizations like Politico, the New York Times, and NPR have been ordered to give up Pentagon office space to make room for sycophantic outlets like One America News and Breitbart. Last week, Hegseth prohibited reporters from walking freely through most parts of the Pentagon without an approved escort.
So perhaps it wasn’t that much of a surprise when the Pentagon apparently sought to block CNN’s Haley Britzky from serving as the TV pool reporter for Hegseth’s Singapore trip this week. No reasons were provided, though she had recently stirred the ire of a top Hegseth ally by tweeting out her Signal contact information after the Defense Department tried to crack down on leaks.
But there was a surprise waiting for us—and it’s in how Britzky’s fellow Pentagon reporters responded. According to media scoopmeister Oliver Darcy, those journalists told the Defense Department that they’d skip the trip if Britzky wasn’t restored to her pool role. “The Pentagon relented,” Darcy noted. “Britzky will travel with Hegseth as originally planned.”
Good for Britzky’s fellow reporters. And if you noticed a contrast between this incident and how the White House press corps has handled Trump’s ban on the Associated Press, well, you aren’t the only one.
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
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