- Journalists to obtain approval before publishing information.
- New guidelines restrict the journalists’ movement within the Pentagon.
- Journalists had to sign an affidavit promising to comply.
Washington: The Pentagon has unveiled new restrictions on the media covering the American army, which forces them not to disclose anything formally authorized for publication and limit their movements within the Ministry of War.
The new guidelines, presented in a long memo distributed to journalists on Friday, forces them to sign an affidavit promising to comply – or to lose their media references.
This decision is the last of President Donald Trump’s administration to control media coverage of his policies, and after suggesting that negative stories could be “illegal”.
The Pentagon “remains attached to transparency to promote the responsibility and the confidence of the public,” said the memo.
But he adds: “The information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authority[s]Official before his release, even if he is not classified ”- unless the equipment is from anonymous officials.
This new restriction would apply to classified and “unanimified” controlled information.
The memo also details new restrictions on which Pentagon journalists can in fact pass without official escorts in the vast military seat just outside Washington.
“The” press “does not manage the Pentagon – the people do it,” wrote the defense secretary Pete Hegseth on X.
“The press is no longer allowed to browse the corridors of a secure installation. Wear a badge and follow the rules – or go home. ”
The new rules occur months after Hegseth faced criticisms struck to reveal the timetables of the American air strikes on the Yemen Houthis in a group cat cat who inadvertently included a journalist.
Hegseth – A former Fox News co -host and veteran of the National Army Guard – would also have shared these details in a chain of separate signal groups which included his wife.
A spokesperson for the New York Times – A frequent target of Trump’s ire – qualified the new rules “another step in a model worrying to reduce access to the US army undertakes to expenditure of taxpayers.”
The president of the National Press Club, Mike Balsamo, reached the new rules and called on the Pentagon to cancel them quickly.
“If the news of our soldiers must first be approved by the government, the public no longer obtains independent reports,” Balsamo said in a statement.
“This only does what those in charge want them to see. This should alarm each American. ”
