The latest media directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a bad-faith brush-off masquerading as transparency.
The Defense Department’s new press access policy — revised this week after a federal judge struck down the one Hegseth implemented last fall — retains the original’s prohibition on journalists asking questions of officials who aren’t authorized to talk to the press.
You know a government agency’s media policy is a sham when it tells journalists to just file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The Pentagon introduced that and a range of other restrictions in October, saying the changes were an effort toward “preventing leaks that damage operational security and national security.” Nearly every major U.S. news outlet, including Fox News, refused to sign on to the policy. The New York Times sued, and a federal judge ruled this month that the restrictive procedures violated the First Amendment.
The newly revised policy attempts to justify the original unconstitutional overstep by pointing to all the “legitimate” means that journalists have at their disposal to obtain news about the department. They “remain free to gather information through legitimate means, such as Freedom of Information Act requests, official briefings, questions posed to authorized Department spokespersons and officials, or unsolicited tips, and to publish as they deem newsworthy,” it says.
Pro tip: You know a government agency’s media policy is a sham when it tells journalists to just file a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request.
To be clear, Hegseth’s media briefings are a joke. Hegseth banned media photographers from Pentagon press conferences this month over unflattering photos — a less than professional response to a bad hair day. Under his media team, “the war has become something of a black box,” a source told CNN, with Pentagon spokespeople giving fewer and less candid briefings than in past administrations.
As for unsolicited tips, that’s not how journalism works. News doesn’t just fall into journalists’ laps — except perhaps when Hegseth puts it in a Signal group chat. Journalists report to find information, including by talking to government employees willing to blow the whistle on incompetent leaders and other concerns. Media outlets are entitled to publish information from government officials, even information given by mistake or in violation of government rules, because journalists don’t work for the government. In a 1975 ruling, the Supreme Court explained that a contrary rule “would invite timidity and self-censorship and very likely lead to the suppression of many items that … should be made available to the public.”
The Pentagon’s suggestion to file FOIA requests as a substitute for other means of gathering news is particularly ridiculous. That’s because the FOIA process, which is broken across the federal government, is especially bad at the Pentagon, particularly under Hegseth’s leadership.
If the Pentagon redacts that much information on a topic the public is already aware of, why should any reporter believe Hegseth’s claim that FOIA is a viable substitute for actual press access?
According to data from fiscal 2025, the oldest pending FOIA request at the Pentagon is nearly 4,400 days old. In other words, Hegseth is effectively telling journalists if they file a request today, the Pentagon might get back to them in 12 years.
Setting aside the insult, that’s just not viable in national security reporting, especially at a time when the military is waging two likely illegal military operations, with no end in sight.
Even if the Pentagon eventually responds to a journalist who filed a FOIA request today about the Iran war, for example, the people responsible for waging the war could be long gone from government. And that’s assuming the department responds at all.
At Freedom of the Press Foundation, we’ve seen this stonewalling firsthand. We’ve filed for records we know exist and are essential to public accountability.
We’ve asked, for example, for discussions concerning the legal rationale behind the lethal targeting of alleged drug boats. We’ve requested the memorandum of understanding regarding Qatar’s reported “unconditional donation” of a Boeing jet to the Defense Department. We’ve sought the memos forcing employees to sign nondisclosure agreements that gag them from sharing anything without official authorization.
The response to these requests? Silence.
On the rare occasions the Defense Department “releases” something, the response often makes a mockery of the transparency law.
For instance, Freedom of the Press Foundation asked in September for legislative proposals concerning the Trump administration’s rebrand of the Department of Defense to the “Department of War.” This was a straightforward request about a topic the Pentagon has been incredibly vocal about. In response, this week we received 45 pages of redactions so extensive the pages were simply solid grey boxes from top to bottom.
If the Pentagon redacts that much information on a topic the public is already aware of, why should any reporter believe Hegseth’s claim that FOIA is a viable substitute for actual press access?
FOIA is a vital tool. Too often it’s the only tool to force disclosure of secrets the government wants to keep. But it is typically a slow, litigious and exhausting process. Even when FOIA requests work as intended, this process was never meant to be the only or primary way for the news media to interact with the military. The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to offer a bare-minimum level of transparency to the press and the public — not to put a ceiling on journalists’ access to the government.
By pushing journalists out of the Pentagon and toward a potentially yearslong waiting game, the Hegseth doctrine is clear: The Pentagon doesn’t honor the public’s right to know; it serves Hegseth’s desire to hide.
Lauren Harper holds the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation.
