00:00This is apropos.
00:04Dozens of journalists have been turning in their access badges at the Pentagon,
00:08returning their press credentials rather than agreeing to government-imposed restrictions on their work.
00:14Some 30 or so news organizations declined to sign the new policy,
00:19citing a threat to press freedoms.
00:21With the details, here's Monty Francis.
00:23In an act of defiance, journalists walked out of the Pentagon for good and by the dozens.
00:33Some had covered the U.S. military for decades from inside the building,
00:37but said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had gone too far
00:40by trying to force them to sign on to new restrictions they said violated the freedom of the press.
00:46Hegseth maintains the new rules are common sense.
00:49You can't just roam anywhere you want.
00:51It used to be, Mr. President, the press could go anywhere, pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon,
00:55the most classified area in the world.
00:59While it is untrue that reporters could roam wherever they wanted in the Pentagon,
01:03the new rules further limit the media's access to the building and how they interact with staff,
01:09including how reporters solicit information from sources.
01:13The rules also restrict what the media can report, including some kinds of unclassified information.
01:18Well, the Pentagon certainly can restrict the publication of classified information,
01:24but unclassified information is something that I think goes too far when it comes to the First
01:30Amendment. Journalists have a right to gather news.
01:33Hegseth, himself a former Fox News anchor, has been plagued by a series of leaks to the media,
01:39which he's eager to rein in, including doubts in the ranks about his lack of experience running a large
01:44organization and revelations that he twice revealed sensitive military information from his Signal
01:50account.
01:50The First Amendment protects the right of reporters to publish information, even if it's leaked,
01:57even if someone broke the law to give it to the reporter, so long as the reporter themselves didn't break the law.
02:03Only the conservative One American News Network agreed to the new rules.
02:07More than 30 others refused, including the Associated Press, the New York Times and conservative
02:12outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, saying they would continue to cover the Pentagon without
02:18direct access to the building.
02:21Well, for more, we're joined now by Jody Ginsberg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
02:27Thanks so much, Jody, for being with us on the program this evening.
02:31Just remind us, what exactly does this new policy demand of journalists and news outlets, and
02:37why do you think it's happening now?
02:40So what this policy demands of news outlets is they sign an agreement that they cannot solicit
02:47or obtain information that the Department of Defense does not explicitly authorize.
02:54So that includes both classified information, but also unclassified information.
02:59And that to do so presents a security risk.
03:04And rightly, at least 30 organizations refused to sign and, as you saw, have walked out of
03:10the building today.
03:11And is there anything at all to suggest that the Pentagon has legitimate security concerns
03:16that might in some way justify this new policy?
03:20There's nothing at all to suggest that they have legitimate security concerns.
03:25You saw the Secretary of Defense talk about people being able to wander the corridors and just
03:33obtain classified information.
03:35That's simply not how it works.
03:37And in fact, the biggest leak of classified information that we've had since the new administration,
03:41of course, is from the Secretary himself in the open signal chat that he shared with a
03:47journalist from the Atlantic.
03:49So it is not journalists that are sharing and obtaining classified information.
03:54But even as you heard there, it's really vital that we have journalists who are able to do
04:00news gathering.
04:01What the Pentagon refers to as illegal soliciting is news gathering, the gathering of unclassified
04:08information so that they can report in the public interest.
04:11Remember that the Department of Defense has a budget of nearly $1 trillion.
04:16It's the third biggest expenditure of the United States government after health and after Social
04:23Security.
04:24It is by far the biggest federal employer.
04:27Over 70% of federal employees are employed either by the Department of Defense or in security
04:32agencies.
04:33It's really important that journalists have access and are able to understand how it is
04:38operating, what it is doing and how it is spending public money.
04:42And Jodie, how unprecedented is this?
04:45And also, is it actually legal or does it in and of itself violate the First Amendment?
04:52Well, it's highly unusual.
04:53We've not seen this kind of requirement from the White House, for example, or any other
04:58departments in the United States.
05:00It's not clear that it's even legal for it to make such a requirement.
05:03We've heard the Department of Defense reiterate that it thinks this is simply common sense.
05:08We see it as part and parcel of an increasing crackdown on a free press in the America.
05:15This is not happening in isolation, of course.
05:18This is part and parcel of a longstanding attempt to muzzle and smear the press in the United
05:25States that starts with President Donald Trump and is filtering through into other agencies
05:31and other departments.
05:33Yeah, because where might all of this lead to?
05:36And what exactly is going to happen to the journalists or the news outlets that don't
05:40abide by this new policy?
05:44Well, of course, as those news outlets have said, they will continue to report on the Pentagon
05:49without that physical access.
05:52But as I say, this is part of a much bigger picture of attempts to muzzle the press.
05:57I think it's significant that the only news outlet that agreed to sign this document was
06:02the OAN, which is a conservative outlet that is known to be very supportive of the government.
06:07And where this leads, frankly, when governments try to control what the media can and can't
06:12say, is really that you get less and less information to the public.
06:18You get less independent information because more and more of the information is being controlled
06:23by the government itself, which has, of course, an interest, a vested interest in presenting
06:29information in the best possible light.
06:32It's vital that we have a free press so that we can hold those in power to account.
06:37And, you know, Trump hasn't been back in the White House for a year yet, but he's already
06:41taken on a host of news outlets and organisations, one of the most recent being the New York Times.
06:47Now, that does have the resources to fight back and to stand up for itself.
06:51But what about this much smaller organisations?
06:55What can they do when they're getting this kind of pressure being applied by their own
06:59governments?
07:01Well, I think this is exactly the point, that large organisations do have the financial
07:05resources to fight back, like the New York Times.
07:08But even then, we've seen a number of news outlets cave under pressure and under threat
07:13from this administration.
07:15We've seen that in the settlements that ABC News and CBS News made following what were
07:21widely considered to be spurious and vexatious lawsuits from the president.
07:26But the net effect is when we see these kinds of threats against news outlets that are intended
07:34to tie people up in lengthy and expensive litigation, quite often news outlets will either be forced
07:39to fold the smaller ones or simply shy away from reporting on those most difficult and contentious
07:45topics.
07:46And of course, the people that lose out from that are us, the public.
07:50Yeah, because what kind of an impact is this when we talk specifically about military policy
07:54and the Pentagon?
07:56What kind of an impact is that going to have on how Americans actually understand what's happening
08:01within their own armed forces?
08:03And even not just Americans, but it's the most powerful military in the world that we're
08:07talking about here.
08:09It can have a huge impact.
08:11If you think, for example, that the United States is currently engaging in direct attacks
08:16on boats in the Caribbean, saying that those individuals are drug traffickers.
08:23We have very little information about that.
08:25The legality of that is highly questionable.
08:27Those kinds of things require journalists to ask difficult questions, to uncover information,
08:35to investigate.
08:36The less we have of that, the less we're able to understand whether governments are behaving
08:41legally, whether governments are behaving ethically, how they are using government money,
08:49public money, whether they're using that effectively.
08:52All of those things are harder and harder to establish when you shut out journalists from
08:59places like the Pentagon.
09:01Jodie, we'll have to leave it there for now.
09:03We do really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us on the programme this evening,
09:06though.
09:06That is Jodie Ginsberg, President of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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