News outlets broadly reject Pentagon rules before signing deadline

Media across the ideological spectrum said they will not sign the Defense Department’s restrictive new press policy by Tuesday’s afternoon deadline. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN said they wouldn’t sign, as did Newsmax and the Washington Times.

The policy says reporters cannot obtain or solicit any information the Defense Department does not explicitly authorize. Any media representative who does not sign by 5 p.m. Tuesday has 24 hours to turn in their media credentials and clear out of the Pentagon facilities.

After pushback from reporters, news organizations and press freedom advocacy groups, the Pentagon expanded the prohibitions in the document, earning condemnation last week from the Pentagon Press Association, which represents the Pentagon press corps.

The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Reuters and the Guardian, along with the trade publications Task & Purpose and Breaking Defense, said they were not signing either. Fox News, Hegseth’s former employer, has not yet said whether it would sign the pledge.

The only publication that has said it will sign the agreement is the right-wing One America News. “After thorough review of the revised press policy by our attorney, OAN staff has signed the document,” OAN president Charles Herring said in a statement Monday. He highlighted and bold-faced the word “revised” in his email.

Other conservative media pushed back against the government. Newsmax, the right-wing cable network run by Trump ally Christopher Ruddy, said it would not sign.

Christopher Dolan, president and executive editor of the Washington Times, wrote simply, “No, our reporters will not be signing.” The Washington Examiner’s editor, Hugo Gurdon, wrote that his outlet “does not sign agreements with people we cover in any other area, and we do not plan to make an exception in this case.”