The Defense Department will remove media offices from the Pentagon after a federal judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging limits on reporters\u2019 access to the building, a department official announced Monday.<\/p>\n
An area of the Pentagon known as \u201cCorrespondents\u2019 Corridor\u201d that reporters have used for decades to cover the U.S. military will close immediately, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said. Journalists will eventually be able to work from an \u201cannex\u201d outside the building, which he said \u201cwill be available when ready.\u201d He offered no detail about how long that will take.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon Press Association said the announcement \u201cis a clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week\u2019s ruling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt such a critical time, we ask why the Pentagon is choosing to restrict vital press freedoms that help inform all Americans,\u201d the association said.<\/p>\n
The new policy is the latest dispute over press access to President Donald Trump\u2019s administration, which has limited legacy media while boosting conservative and pro-Trump outlets.<\/p>\n
The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the agency\u2019s new credentialing policy violated journalists\u2019 constitutional rights to free speech and due process. Dozens of reporters had walked out of the building rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., last week sided with the newspaper. He ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times journalists and struck down some of the agency\u2019s restrictions on news reporting.<\/p>\n
Friedman said the \u201cundisputed evidence\u201d shows that the policy is designed to weed out \u201cdisfavored journalists\u201d and replace them with those who are \u201con board and willing to serve\u201d the government, a clear instance of illegal viewpoint discrimination.<\/p>\n
Parnell said the Defense Department disagrees with the ruling and is pursuing an appeal. He said security concerns prompted restrictions on press access, a claim that journalists have rejected.<\/p>\n
Under the latest Pentagon rules announced Monday, journalists will still have access to the Pentagon for press conferences and interviews arranged through the department\u2019s public affairs team, but they will have to be escorted, Parnell wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.<\/p>\n
The AP, meanwhile, is awaiting a decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals on its separate lawsuit against President Donald Trump\u2019s administration. The AP contends that Trump\u2019s White House team punished it by reducing its access to presidential events because the outlet hasn\u2019t followed his lead in renaming the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Defense Department will remove media offices from the Pentagon after a federal judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging limits on reporters\u2019 access to the building, a department official announced Monday. An area of the Pentagon known as \u201cCorrespondents\u2019 Corridor\u201d that reporters have used for decades to cover the U.S. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":36830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}