A week after the bulk of the Pentagon’s journalists handed in their media credentials and walked out the door rather than sign Pete Hegseth’s restrictive press pledge, the Defense Department announced that it was ushering in a “next generation” press corps that had embraced the policy.
While all of the broadcast networks – including Hegseth’s former employer Fox News – will no longer have any reporters in the halls of the Pentagon, along with major news publications like The New York Times and Washington Post, DOD spokesperson Sean Parnell declared that they will be replaced by “a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists.”
However, despite Parnell’s assertion, the actual list of organizations and “independent journalists” making up the “new media” Pentagon press corps largely consists of MAGA-friendly outlets, far-right commentators and conservative YouTubers who have specialized in over-the-top pro-Trump content.
While Parnell and the Pentagon’s press office did not publicly divulge the names of the publications and journalists who had agreed to the press restrictions, which block reporters from soliciting unclassified information from defense employees without the department’s prior authorization, a number of right-wing outlets quickly revealed they were on board with the pledge.
That included Lindell TV, the Trumpist propaganda streaming service founded by election-denying MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, and the right-wing websites Gateway Pundit, Human Events, The Post Millennial, Just the News, and The National Pulse.
“Excited to announce @HumanEvents and @TPostMillennial have joined the Pentagon Press Corps,” tweeted Human Events host Jack Posobiec, a fierce Trump loyalist who first gained notoriety for peddling the unhinged Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
“We are excited to announce over 60 journalists, representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists, have signed the Pentagon’s media access policy and will be joining the new Pentagon press corps,” Parnell declared in his announcement.
Additionally, Parnell claimed that 26 “journalists across 18 outlets were among the former Pentagon press corps who chose to sign the DOW media access policy.” Initially, it was estimated that just 15 reporters – which included those from pro-Trump outlets One America News, The Federalist and The Epoch Times – had agreed with the policy.
Many of the original signatories are freelancers who hail from foreign press outlets or work for tiny independent sites, some of which almost exclusively produce content for social media. Furthermore, after the original group of outlets and reporters agreeing to the policy was made public, The Australian – an Australia-based paper owned by Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch – reversed course and stated that the press restrictions “raise serious concerns and place undue limits on press freedoms.”
In fact, the only outlet that signed onto the policy and regularly had reporters at the Pentagon is One America News, whose president stated that the network’s staff signed the agreement after a “thorough review.”
Outside of Fox News, several other conservative news organizations have refused to agree to the media prohibitions, including Newsmax, The Washington Times, The Daily Caller and the Washington Examiner.
Asked for comment about the makeup of the “next generation” Pentagon press corps, DOD spokesperson Joel Valdez said that “we have nothing additional to provide” but did urge The Independent to monitor the department’s social media accounts for “more updates.”
Indeed, both the Pentagon’s rapid response team and DOD Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson retweeted a number of prominent conservative journalists, right-wing influencers and media outlets publicly declaring that they’d signed the Pentagon press oath.
“LindellTV is proud to announce our official inclusion in the newly formed Pentagon press corps under the Department of War’s updated media access policy,” the announcement from Lindell’s network stated. “We join a coalition of more than 60 new media outlets and independent journalists committed to transparency, truth, and accountability. As legacy media continues to lose the trust of the American people, LindellTV stands at the forefront of a rising movement reshaping how news is delivered - direct, unfiltered, and free from corporate control.”
The official statement from LindellTV echoed much of Parnell’s announcement, which featured Hegseth’s assistant claiming that the “new media” has “created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people.” He added that the public has “largely abandoned digesting their news through the lens of activists who masquerade as journalists in the mainstream media.”
According to a draft of Parnell’s announcement reviewed by The Washington Post prior to his Wednesday afternoon tweet, a list of organizations approving the press policy was supposed to be publicly revealed.
“[T]he coalition of signatories includes streaming service Lindell TV (started by MyPillow CEO and Trump ally Mike Lindell), the websites the Gateway Pundit, the Post Millennial, Human Events, and the National Pulse,” the Post reported. “It also includes Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, as well as influencer Tim Pool’s Timcast, and a Substack-based newsletter called Washington Reporter. The memo said that ‘many independent journalists’ also signed, but did not specify who they were.”
Pool, a right-wing podcaster who was duped into working for a Kremlin-funded outlet last year, defended Timcast’s decision to sign onto the Pentagon pledge. “Our access is mostly for general inquiries and interviews,” Pool tweeted. “Should a story, for some reason, end up in our laps that may put us at odds with the Pentagon’s press policy, we will always prioritize the public’s right to know and transparency. However, given that we are not investigative reporters, we don’t expect to find ourselves in these circumstances.”
Matthew Foldi, a former GOP political candidate who now runs the Substack-based Washington Reporter, wrote a gushing editorial about the Pentagon’s “common sense” media guidelines while noting that he was “honored to make history” with Hegseth and the department.
“At the end of the day, we are comfortable signing these policies in part because of who is opposed to them,” Foldi wrote, adding: “We are honored to join the Pentagon’s newer, and better, press corps.”
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