Hegseth takes questions from Pentagon reporters in June. /Kyodonews/Zuma
Last week, dozens of reporters covering the Pentagon staged a historic walkout, handing in their press badges rather than submit to restrictive new media policies promulgated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. This week, there are still news outlets—in a manner of speaking—covering the Pentagon precisely the way Hegseth and his underlings would like to be covered. The results, fawning, uninformative, and insipid though they may be, offer a valuable look at what the Trump administration has in mind when it comes to news coverage.
Right-wing media figures “jumped at the chance” to sign a coverage pledge.
The Pentagon’s new rules for the press—a 21-page list including an absurd stipulation that journalists sign a pledge they won’t publish material not authorized for public release—made reporters who had long worked in the building worry they could be prosecuted for doing their jobs. But at least eighteen right-wing outlets, according to the Washington Post, signed on, ranging from obscure Substacks to longtime conspiracy pusher Gateway Pundit, through to MyPillow tycoon Mike Lindell’s LindellTV and Frontlines, the media arm of Turning Point USA, co-founded by recently assassinated activist Charlie Kirk. Together, they essentially function as megaphones for the Trump administration, part of the new state media that’s come to define the president’s second term.
As proof, just consider how they covered news of the Pentagon press corps overhaul. As the Economist’s Shashank Joshi pointed out on X, one of the newly credentialed outlets, a Substack blog called the Washington Reporter, wasted no time in praising Hegseth‘s changes. In an editorial, it dismissed the “media freakout” over the policies as “another example of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Our only concern is that the Department of War has waited until October to implement these new changes.”
The blog, which describes itself as providing “right-of-center news and commentary to a D.C. audience,” added, “We support these guidelines as sound policy. We have signed them. And we are grateful for Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership and his remarkable track record of success.”
In its coverage of the rules, the Post Millennial, a Canadian outlet best known for publishing right-wing provocateur Andy Ngo, praised Hegseth for “his approach for high standards, military readiness, and a ‘warrior ethos.’”
The Daily Signal, which was founded as a project of the Heritage Foundation before becoming independent in 2024, wrote that it had decided to obtain Pentagon press credentials “after consulting legal advisers, trusted industry colleagues, and national security experts, plus Department of War staff who crafted the policy and explained how it would impact our work.” The outlet accused some journalists who objected to the policy of “deliberately misrepresenting” it, and promised, “Nothing in the Pentagon’s updated guidelines can or will alter our methods and reporting, both of which are of paramount importance for our news organization.”
What the outlet considers “reporting,” though, is telling: Their “news” coverage on Thursday consisted of one story quoting White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissing concerns about Trump’s plan to import Argentine beef, and a so-called “exclusive” parrotting State Department talking points defending plans to accept white South Africans as refugees.
The ways some of the remaining outlets approached one of the biggest stories of Hegseth’s tenure makes clear that there’s little journalistic integrity left in the Pentagon press corps. When the secretary accidentally shared classified battle plans with a journalist in a group chat, the National Pulse claimed the security breach only “exposed” Hegseth and other administration officials as “professional and focused.” Gateway Pundit blasted the news as a “Deep State leak.” When it was rumored Hegseth might be forced out after the scandal, the Federalist backed him, declaring that “If Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary thus far is what ‘total chaos’ is supposed to look like, then by all means keep it coming.”
Other outlets that now help make up the official Pentagon press corps have been more honest in essentially admitting the Pentagon’s requirements are little barrier, since they don’t really cover news. “Should a major story unexpectedly come our way that conflicts with press policies, we will prioritize the public’s right to know and transparency,” Far-right podcaster Tim Pool wrote on Twitter, making a pledge to the tens of people who get their news from his Timcast platform. “However, as we are not investigative reporters, we do not anticipate frequently encountering such situations.”
In a discussion on the far-right streaming channel Real America’s Voice, Jack Posobiec, a Pizzagate promoter turned self-styled journalist and a senior editor at Human Events, said that he had “jumped at the chance” to get press credentials and praised the Pentagon for curbing an “inappropriate” level of access and working to avoid further “very bad political leaks.”
He added, not quite convincingly, that Human Events would exercise its First Amendment rights and continue covering the news: “No one ever tells us what to write.” It would seem that they don’t really have to.
