By Anna Schumann
The Pentagon is not generally considered a fount of free information, sometimes for good reasons. U.S. national security requires top secrets to be held closely by people who have been thoroughly vetted and cleared, lest officials accidentally share war plans with journalists in real time, for example.
So should it be alarming or even surprising when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unveils new restrictions on reporters covering the Department of Defense, asking them to pledge not to publish information that has not been authorized by the administration at the risk of losing their access? As a former journalist who has followed press freedom issues closely for more than two decades and who has a clear interest in what happens at the Pentagon, I am not surprised by this clear violation of the First Amendment and look forward to media outlets beating this unlawful order in courts. But I am alarmed by its intended consequences.
What do new restrictions on DoD reporters have to do with Center issues like nuclear weapons and the Pentagon budget? Everything.
The New York Times national security reporter David Sanger lays out (gift link) what the consequences of such a rule being in place years ago could have been — only positive reports of the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, nothing but optimistic reports of the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s, for example. As he writes, the key to national security reporting is to “compare the government’s official account with evidence, documents and on-the-ground reporting.”
Many of the Pentagon’s perennial problems that precede this administration, such as waste and mismanagement, have only come to light because of reporting that is independent of the Pentagon — precisely the type the administration is trying to censor now. The difference is that the current administration does not seem to value the press’ traditional role as a check on such waste. Given this administration’s hypersensitivity to criticism, it isn’t hard to imagine why the SecDef believes such control of the media is necessary.
From the Center perspective, we often rely on such reporting to add context and timeliness to our engagements on Capitol Hill, with the press and with people like you. It was independent reporting that told us nuclear weapons operators were among the federal employees cut for no reason in the earliest days of the administration and that the Air Force’s replacement ICBM was so far above budget that it triggered a mandatory Pentagon review.
An attack on journalism is an attack on fact, truth and democracy. It’s also an attack on our ability to do our jobs effectively. It’s up to those of us who care about issues like defense spending and nuclear programs specifically — and democracy issues more broadly — to seek out, support and share such journalism. This moment requires nothing less.
