Pentagon Declares Newsroom Restricted Area, Bars Journalists, Here’s Why

US PENTAGON: Journalists can no longer enter the Pentagon’s newsroom, which is now classified as a restricted area as more and more gates are being closed to the press at the Department of Defence. “This is the most transparent war department in history. No amount of spin from the Fake News media will change that,” Jose Valdez, the acting Defence Department press secretary, said in a social media post. The Pentagon Press Office is redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility because of the sharing of the facility by speechwriters of the Office of the Secretary of War.

Why has Pentagon tightened press restrictions

One of the reasons for that is the classified information that is handled by a speechwriter, so that “journalists will no longer be allowed to enter the office space,” Valdez said. The move was first reported by the Washington Post, and later confirmed by Valdez on social media.

The defence department, which the Trump administration prefers to call the war department, began rolling out new restrictions to press access in September, when the military demanded journalists pledge not to gather any information, including unclassified documents. 

US Military Press Access Under Scrutiny

For years, credentialed journalists could walk the halls of the Pentagon with hardly any hassle. Everything changed last October when the defence department rolled out tough new rules. Many seasoned reporters wouldn’t go along with them; they handed in their press passes instead. The department talked about building a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps,” but the only folks on the list were about 60 journalists, many from far-right outlets.

The New York Times decided they’d had enough and sued, since the Pentagon was basically calling journalists “security risks.” By March, a federal judge sided with the Times.

The Pentagon then put out a temporary policy: no journalist could visit without an official escort. A district judge shot it down and said it broke his order, but the rule stayed in effect after an appeals court let the government stall for more time. Not backing down, the Times filed another lawsuit in May, calling the whole thing “an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs.”

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