United States President Donald Trump’s administration has announced new restrictions on media outlets’ reporting of the country’s military, including a requirement that journalists pledge not to publish unauthorised information.
Under the new rules unveiled by the Department of War, previously the Department of Defense, reporters could lose their credentials to cover the military if they refused to sign a pledge agreeing to only disclose approved information.
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The rules, contained in a memo published by The New York Times following its circulation among media outlets on Friday, stipulate that information must be approved for release by “an appropriate authorising official before it is released, even if it is unclassified”.
The measures also limit the movements of journalists within the Arlington, Virginia-based Pentagon building itself, designating much of the facility off-limits without an escort.
“The ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon – the people do,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a post on X following a report about the changes.
“The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules – or go home.”
Mike Balsamo, the president of the National Press Club, blasted the changes as an attack on independent journalism “at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most”.
“If the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting. It is getting only what officials want them to see. That should alarm every American,” Balsamo said in a statement.
“Independent reporting on the military is essential to democracy. It is what allows citizens to hold leaders accountable and ensures that decisions of war and peace are made in the light of day.”
Multiple media organisations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Reuters news agency, joined in the condemnation of the restrictions.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that decades of US Supreme Court precedent affirmed the right of the media to publish government secrets.
“That is essentially the job description of an investigative journalist. The law is also clear that the government can’t require people to contract away a constitutional right, like the right to obtain and publish secrets, in exchange for a benefit, like access to government buildings or press credentials,” Stern told Al Jazeera.
“This policy operates as a prior restraint on publication, which is considered the most serious of First Amendment violations. As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the government cannot prohibit journalists from public information merely by claiming it’s a secret or even a national security threat.”
The Pentagon Papers case, aka the New York Times Co. v. United States, refers to a 1971 ruling by the Supreme Court that affirmed the freedom of the press by allowing The New York Times and The Washington Post to publish classified documents detailing the history of US involvement in the Vietnam War.
The Trump administration’s new restrictions are the latest in a series of moves by the US government to curtail the media.
On Wednesday, the ABC announced that it had suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s long-running talk show after the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened regulatory action over remarks the host made about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
FCC chair Brendan Carr has signalled that further action to rein in voices critical of the administration could be on the way.
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Carr, a Trump appointee, said that his agency would continue to hold broadcasters “accountable to the public interest”, and that those who did not like that could “turn their licence in”.
Days before Kimmel’s suspension, Trump filed a $15bn lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defamation, following similar suits against CBS News, ABC News and The Wall Street Journal.
On Friday, a judge in Florida threw out the suit against The New York Times, finding that the complaint relied on “tendentious arguments” and contained “repetitive” and “laudatory” praise of Trump that was not relevant to the case.
