Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s clampdown on Pentagon press access has blown up into an open revolt by major newsrooms, with reporters vacating their desks rather than accept new rules that tighten movement inside the building and threaten credentials for seeking information the department has not pre-cleared. In the past week, dozens of outlets refused to go along, a rare mass walkout that underscores how far relations between the Pentagon and the press have frayed.
At the heart of the standoff is a policy that forces journalists to acknowledge restrictive ground rules, including the prospect of being labeled a security risk and having badges revoked if they ask employees to disclose classified and some categories of unclassified information. Reporters also face heightened escort requirements in parts of the building, a reversal from the looser access that defined Pentagon reporting for years. The Pentagon argues the measures safeguard sensitive operations, but press advocates call it a chilling overreach.
At least 30 organizations reportedly declined to sign, while coverage described empty press spaces and a near total loss of on-site access for legacy outlets that have covered the military for decades. Even as officials insist this is merely an “acknowledgment” of rules, newsroom leaders say the document crosses a line into prior restraint by constraining routine newsgathering, even on unclassified matters.
Hegseth’s allies frame the dispute as overdue discipline. His critics see a bunker mentality. Reports have already chronicled a pattern: fewer formal briefings, expanded escorts, and aggressive leak hunts that predate the latest memo. That pattern, they argue, erodes transparency that the Pentagon’s own Principles of Information once held up as a cornerstone of public trust.
That is exactly the warning sounded by two veteran defense thinkers, Eric Edelman and Eliot A. Cohen, on their Shield of the Republic podcast. Cohen scoffed at the notion that journalists will simply stop reporting. “The idea that journalists are going to roll over and play dead or that people are not going to leak to them, that’s crazy,” he said. He added that Hegseth may believe he can exert the kind of control he once had “over many of his privates,” but “with the general officer corps, no. He may not understand how much he’s damaged his own standing and that he should care about that because that will affect his ability to implement things.”
Cohen went further, arguing that the small circle around Hegseth is fanning the problem. “The coterie around Hegseth is even more paranoid… They will suspect everybody [of leaking],” he said. “There’s plenty of paranoia in a normal administration in the Pentagon about who’s leaking against me and all that. But in this case, I think it’ll just be pervasive and that paralyzes you, that causes you to make all kinds of mistakes.” Edelman agreed that a paranoia spiral can backfire by alienating senior officers and encouraging end-runs to the press, a dynamic that makes operational missteps more likely, not less.
With most major outlets declining the terms, on-site coverage has thinned, while reporters work phones from outside the building. Defense correspondents say the new regime narrows independent scrutiny at the exact moment the military faces costly modernization decisions and global flashpoints. That vacuum, they warn, will be filled by leaks and speculation rather than accountable briefings.
