The Pentagon press corps has a new look.
Out are all the major networks, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
In are TurningPoint USA, RedState and a streaming service run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
More than 60 journalists “representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists” have received credentials to cover the headquarters of the U.S. military under new Trump administration restrictions, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Wednesday.
They will join 26 journalists who agreed to the new restrictions even as the networks, including administration-friendly Fox News, refused to sign on to the rules along with the Post, AP and other traditional outlets.
Journalists surrendered their Pentagon press passes and walked out of the building on Oct. 15 in protest of the new rules, which include an agreement not to report information not approved for release by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Frontlines, a media outlet run by Turning Point USA, as well as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s streaming service Lindell TV both confirmed on social media that they had signed onto the new policy. The list of new outlets gaining credentials also includes conservative news sites like Human Events, the Post Millennial, RedState and the Washington Reporter.
Also credentialed under the new policy will be the Gateway Pundit, which settled a defamation lawsuit related to baseless allegations of election fraud last year, and the National Pulse, run by Raheem Kassam of the far-right Independence Party in the United Kingdom.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides legal services for journalists and news organizations, called on the Pentagon to pause implementation of the new policy until it clarified “unambiguous terms” that said reporters could lose their credentials if they sought information not approved for release.
An initial memo announcing the policy last month read that “information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” although the Pentagon later said that “journalists remain free to gather information through legitimate.”
Still, the Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists covering the Defense Department, repeatedly objected to the new policy, which they said “arises from an entirely one-sided move by Pentagon officials apparently intent upon cutting the American public off from information they do not control and pre-approve.”
Hegseth’s Defense Department has repeatedly clashed with the Pentagon press corps, with the Pentagon revoking workspaces from several media organizations — including POLITICO, The Washington Post and The New York Times — earlier this year.
