Dem
47
GOP
53
"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind," the musician Jim Morrison once observed. On that point, and as we have noted a couple of times, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced strict new rules for journalists who cover the Pentagon. In short, the various outlets were given until 5:00 p.m. today to sign a pledge by which they promised that they would not gather, or publish, any information that has not been vetted by a Department of Defense official. That kind of military oversight of the press was tolerated on the warfront, during the world wars, in the interest of keeping the enemy from getting information about troop movements. By the time of the Korean, Vietnam, and subsequent conflicts, the journalists said "Uh, maybe not." Certainly, such a policy cannot be justified for reporters who are domestic, and in a country that is not currently at war. Especially since Hegseth didn't even offer the TV journalists access to his $10,000 makeup room.
So, quite correctly, the various outlets began telling Hegseth to take his pledge and shove it. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who gets lots of good information from Signal chats in which he has been accidentally included, was the first to say, "No, thanks." That outlet was followed by numerous others, including The Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times and several military-focused publications like The Military Times and The Armed Forces Journal. Even Newsmax took a pass. Who knew they even had journalistic standards? But apparently they do.
The only outlet to accept the deal was OANN. Current OANN staffer, and noted journalist, Matt Gaetz sent this message out on eX-Twitter:
Frankly I'm shocked these weren't already the rules.
It's the PENTAGON!
@oann is happy to follow these reasonable conditions, grounded in care for our national security.
Hard to imagine what event in Gaetz' past might have caused him to conclude that the less information the press has, the better.
Anyhow, today is D-Day, and nobody's signing. Will Hegseth back down? He's certainly not the type, and he might very much enjoy the thought of having no reporters (except the fawning lackeys from OANN) roaming the Pentagon. On the other hand, Hegseth is almost as much of a publicity whore as Donald Trump, and it's much harder to get publicity without anyone to do the publicizing. Further, it's not like all the information (or even most of the information) about the military is stored within the five walls of that one building in Virginia. If Hegseth actually had the power to unilaterally end coverage of the Department of Defense, he wouldn't have bothered with silly pledges. So, the probable result here is that he's just reduced the extent to which he can influence the narrative and get his version of events out there. After all, if the press can't talk to anyone in the Pentagon, then they don't need to call Hegseth for comments anytime there's any news of, well, any sort. Looks to us like Example #328 of "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." (Z)