(Dobbs) Reporters Could Be Classified As A “Security Or Safety Risk.”“Did I as a reporter solicit information? Of course. It’s called journalism."
The secretary of defense— or is he now the secretary of war— talks a lot about the “warrior ethos” and now he is showing just what a warrior he is. The trouble is, he is a warrior who has gone to war against Americans. Not only against protesters in our cities, but against the media and, as such, against the First Amendment. He is a misfit for the job. But that was obvious even before the day Pete Hegseth was sworn in.
Before he was even confirmed in late January by an acquiescent Senate, there was the womanizing and the drinking. Then in February he fired the 41-year Air Force veteran and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who happened to be black, and the 40-year Navy veteran and chief of naval operations, who happened to be a woman, part of an unmistakable streak of chauvinism in the dismissals he was decreeing. Then in March, there was the dangerously sloppy chat on the commercial message app called Signal where the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic was accidentally included as Hegseth, in real time, shared secret and sensitive minute-by-minute details of an attack against Houthis in Yemen. Then for good measure, he conferred the classified battle plan on his wife and his brother, neither of whom was authorized to see it.
Then just last month there was his extraordinary ego trip when he summoned all the defense department’s top brass— about 800 generals and admirals— to fly in to Quantico from around the world to hear him preach to them about the “warrior ethos,” not to mention about his new standards of “professional appearance” forbidding “fat generals” and “beardos,” this from a man with a chest full of White Nationalist-favored tattoos. Then this month, as if his ego trip to Quantico didn’t take him far enough, he put out a memo that instructed, “Leaders at every level will ensure all personnel”— that means every service member in the world— “will either watch the full recording or read the official transcript of the speech.”
Which brings us to his latest ignominy. This one makes all the others seem minor, because this one is an assault on the constitutionally protected freedom of the press, which means, it is an assault on the need and the right of all Americans to know what’s going on in the single biggest, and most expensive, department of government. Hegseth put out a 21 page memo to all Pentagon correspondents that said they could no longer wander the halls “soliciting” information, let alone report it. “Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.” So to be clear, this new rule is not just a muzzle on classified information that a reporter’s enterprise has uncovered, but even on anything unclassified. If they didn’t sign a pledge to follow Hegseth’s commandment by the end of business Tuesday, their credentials could be revoked, they could lose all access to the defense department, and they could even be classified as a “security or safety risk.” Strange, isn’t it, that after his reckless Signal chat during the Houthi attack, Hegseth wasn’t deemed a “security or safety risk” himself. A BBC report summed everything up: “A new Pentagon policy…. bars journalists from the building unless they only report information that has been officially authorized by the Department of Defense.” NPR’s Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman published a piece lamenting that he was giving up the Pentagon press pass that he has proudly worn for 28 years.
“Signing that document,” he wrote, “would make us stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable.” In other words, he would not agree to obey a policy designed to squeeze the media so it only can report what the government wants it to report. It’s the sort of thing you normally only hear about from a dictatorship. Then again…. Hegseth’s memo also said, “The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”
That would suit him just fine. Although the defense department has been dispatching armed troops to American cities and blowing boats and their occupants out of the water in the Caribbean and as of yesterday, might stage ground strikes in Venezuela, the defense secretary hasn’t done a briefing for Pentagon-based journalists for almost four months. His press secretary hasn’t been seen behind the podium for two. As a half-century-long member of the press corps, I’m proud to say that almost unanimously, colleagues from virtually every news organization refused to sign the pledge, including some conservative outlets that the administration might have thought would roll over and obey, like The Washington Examiner, Newsmax, and Fox News. All except the far-right One America News network. They each put out this joint statement: “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.” Hegseth’s low-class reaction? When they issued their objections online, he flipped them off with emojis of a hand waving goodbye.
Donald Trump of course went to bat for his ill-suited secretary: “I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace. The press is very dishonest.” Interesting, coming from a president for whom dishonesty is a default disposition. As NPR’s Bowman wrote, “Did I as a reporter solicit information? Of course. It’s called journalism: finding out what’s really going on behind the scenes and not accepting wholesale what any government or administration says.” It’s not as if both military and civilian leaders over the years haven’t lied to us. The rationales for Vietnam? For Iraq?
Personally, I only covered the Pentagon once. It was for just a few weeks and it was a long time ago, assigned there by ABC News between months-long stints in Saudi Arabia during the run-up to the first Gulf War. (Pentagon duty was sometimes so boring, I couldn’t wait to return to the Middle East.) The Pentagon reporter in the cubicle next to mine was CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. He showed me the ropes. Pop your head into certain offices, ask questions, report the answers and dig up the truth for a public that has the right to know. That’s what reporters do. Unless the Pentagon won’t let them. Share As of this writing, every single Pentagon reporter now has been barred from the building. All except One America News. How comforting is it to know that this far-right news organ now has the only eyes on the department of defense? Not very. Leave a comment Upgrade to paid Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. You can learn more at GregDobbs.net |
