Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon role is not getting all the reverence that he would have liked to receive, all thanks to the bizarre new policies against the press that he has installed. Interestingly, the U.S. Secretary of War, who had been an ex-host of Fox News’ morning show, has ever since been quite critical about what gets captured and leaked by the media.
This newfound alertness came about after his department’s embarrassing signal chat leak some time back. The policy has various points to be followed by journos- restricted access to Pentagon, limiting information published without ex-anchor’s approval, wearing physical identification marks including a visible badge and more.
However, it seems that with these new policies in place, there is still a fair share of skepticism among many outlets when it comes to adhering to them. A slew of mainstream news publications have openly expressed their decision to reject the new order from the Pentagon.
In fact, the Pentagon Press Association has gone ahead to bracket Hegseth’s new rules as an ‘unprecedented message of intimidation’. Moreover, with the department warning journalists that their press credentials would be revoked if they did not sign the agreement, it has also fuelled little acknowledgement of the matter.
The NYT, Atlantic, WaPo, CNN, Guardian and others have all refused to sign Pete Hegseth new rules on reporting from the Pentagon. As far as I can tell only OAN has signed it. I guess this is Hegseth waving goodbye to their access to the Pentagon and other DOD facilities. pic.twitter.com/AHlkWAwrOk
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 13, 2025
So far, only one right-wing and pro-Trump media organization, called One America News, has signed the agreement. Meanwhile, Newsmax has declared that it would also reject the policy and refuse to sign the deal, since it finds it unnecessary and onerous. A spokesperson from the channel said, “Newsmax has no plans to sign the letter. We are working in conjunction with other media outlets to resolve the situation. We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”
Following the intense outrage from free press advocacy groups and other prominent media outlets, the Pentagon released a revised agreement. It stated that members of the news media will not submit their writings to the departments for advance publication. However, the reporters cannot solicit or get hold of any information that is unauthorized by the department. Moreover, the agreement has a detailed analysis of what behavior of the reporters could be entitled to be categorized as security risks and could even get their press licenses revoked.
After this revision, the Pentagon also put an addendum, which reminded that any media representative who did not acknowledge and sign the agreement by 5 PM on Tuesday had to turn in their passes and clear out their desks immediately. Considering
Newsmax’s staunch decision not to bow down in front of these new policies, it is surprising to note that the outlet is run by one of Donald Trump’s true confidantes, Christopher Ruddy, who shares a close relationship with the White House.
Meanwhile, several other leading news publications have shared their unanimous decision regarding whether they want to abide by these new policies. Those like The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Hill, and Breaking Defense have commonly agreed that they would not sign the agreement.
