Pentagon bans reporters from certain areas of building without escort

The Pentagon on Friday released new rules for reporters that cover the building, banning journalists from certain areas without an official escort or prior approval, heavily curtailing press access to military officials.

Reporters can now only wander certain hallways, mostly near the Pentagon’s entrances and the food court, with the areas off limits including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s physical office spaces and the Joint Staff physical office spaces “without an official approval and escort from the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs,” according to a memo signed by Hegseth.

Reporters are also banned from the Pentagon Athletic Center, the building’s gym.

“While the Department remains committed to transparency, the Department is equally obligated to protect [classified national intelligence information] and sensitive information - the unauthorized disclosure of which could put the lives of U.S. Service members in danger,” Hegseth wrote. 

He added that updated security measures “are needed to reduce the opportunities for in-person inadvertent and unauthorized disclosures.” 

The Pentagon under Hegseth has increasingly enacted measures to limit reporters' abilities to work from the building, including evicting eight news organizations from their workspaces in order to rotate in outlets more friendly to the Trump administration.

In early February, the Defense Department announced that NBC News, the New York Times, NPR and Politico had to vacate, with their spaces to be taken over by One America News Network, the New York Post, Breitbart News and Huffpost.

After reporters for several outlets inquired as to why their employers were singled out to lose their desks, the Pentagon days later announced another four publications would also be asked to leave their spaces.

Those were CNN, The Washington Post, The Hill and War Zone, replaced with Newsmax, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and the Free Press. 

The Pentagon Press Association called the decision “unreasonable.”

Just weeks later on Feb. 21, the Pentagon banned reporters from the press briefing room unless officials were holding a briefing. The move was seen as contentious given the room is one of the few places in the building that had wifi for reporters to file their stories. Since the start of the Trump administration, DOD officials have only held one on-camera briefing in the room.

Reporters typically occupy space in places like the Pentagon, White House and State Department to access officials they need to do their jobs and quickly file stories.

Under the new guidelines, Pentagon Press Corps members must complete a new national security briefing form. And in the coming weeks, the building will reissue reporters a new style of badge with a clearer "PRESS" identifier, according to the memo.