The Department of War closed the longtime press offices within the Pentagon after a judge revoked most of its controversial media ban.
The area of the Pentagon known as the “Correspondents’ Corridor,” including working areas for reporters, was closed effective immediately after U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, ruled in favor of the New York Times’ lawsuit challenging the department’s crackdown on reporting on the military. Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell announced the closure in a lengthy post on X.
“Closure of Correspondents’ Corridor. In assessing the Department’s security posture following the court’s removal of all security screening authority, the Department determined that unescorted access to the Pentagon cannot be responsibly maintained without the ability to screen credential holders for security risks. Effective immediately, the Correspondents’ Corridor is closed,” he wrote.
“A new and improved press workspace will be established in an annex facility outside the Pentagon, but still on Pentagon grounds, and will be available when ready,” Parnell added.
The Pentagon Press Association was quick to denounce Parnell’s new policy, saying it was a “clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week’s ruling.”
“The Pentagon Press Association is consulting with our legal counsel and will advise members once this process is complete. Press freedom is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and an informed public is vital to a democracy,” it wrote.
“The new policy does not comply with the judge’s order. It continues to impose unconstitutional restrictions on the press. We will be going back to court,” the New York Times said.
In his ruling, Friedman agreed with the New York Times that the Pentagon’s new media policy, announced in October, violated the First Amendment. In his view, the restrictive measures violated reporters’ right to cover the military.
In October, the Pentagon laid out new restrictions for reporters, including a ban on asking anyone in the Department of War for any information that hasn’t been approved for release and on accessing swathes of the Pentagon without an escort.
“A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription,” Friedman wrote in his ruling.
“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech,” he added. “That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”
JUDGE RULES PENTAGON PRESS RESTRICTIONS UNLAWFUL
The Washington Examiner, Washington Post, the Atlantic, Reuters, NPR, Newsmax, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the Associated Press, and the New York Times all refused to sign on to the new policy, resulting in their expulsion from the Pentagon’s press room.
