Who's in the revamped Pentagon press corps? |
The Pentagon revamped its press corps last week by welcoming a host of new outlets to cover national security after they agreed to adhere to unprecedented protocols that prevent them from reporting on information that has not been cleared by Defense Department officials.
The policy was first announced in late September and implemented earlier this month as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth aims to clamp down on surprises in the media.
His Cabinet career has been marked by a Signal chat scandal where plans about overseas airstrikes were leaked and instances where internal Pentagon documents appeared to contradict statements made by the White House.
Legacy media staples including ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media and NBC News turned in their press badges last week after refusing to report only on authorized materials.
Other reporters from conservative outlets including Newsmax, the Washington Times, the Washington Examiner and the Daily Caller also turned in their badges, standing in solidarity against Hegseth’s new approach to coverage that outlets allege “threatens core journalistic protections” and presents roadblocks to a “free and independent press,” according to a joint statement from the five major broadcast news networks.
But a group of more than 60 journalists “representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists” have signed the Pentagon’s media access policy and plan to join 26 journalists from 18 outlets who already had building access and agreed to the new rules, according to chief spokesperson Sean Parnell.
Here’s a list covering some of the outlets in the revamped press corps:
Infowars
The far-right outlet was developed by Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who was ordered to pay a