Media outlets and organizations are preparing for a battle over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new rules restricting press access at the Pentagon. 

Legal experts and media advocates say the new policy appears to mark an unprecedented attack on press freedom, pointing to a provision that restricts the release of even unclassified information. 

The Pentagon says media outlets are misconstruing the new rules. Hegseth, who has repeatedly accused journalists of attempting to “sabotage” President Trump’s agenda, wrote on the social platform X the move would establish that “the ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon the people do.”

To obtain or renew a Pentagon pass, according to a 17-page memo released on Sept. 19, reporters must sign a contract that recognizes that department information must be “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”

Those who refuse to sign the form, or do so and then violate the terms, could lose their access to the Pentagon and all U.S. military facilities. Reporters have been told that they must sign the form or their passes could be revoked within two weeks. 

The Hill is coordinating its response with the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which publicly announced its opposition to the new restrictions, asking for a delay in implementation and clarifications around the new policy. 

On Wednesday, the group said Defense officials had agreed to meet to discuss concerns about the First Amendment rights of journalists. In a statement, Gabe Rottman, the committee’s vice president of policy, said the Pentagon’s policy, in its current form, “could be wielded to silence independent reporting in the public interest about the Pentagon and our national defense.”

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), meanwhile, has demanded that the Defense Department “rescind these measures immediately” and urged all journalists and press freedom advocates “to join us in unified opposition and resist this latest attempt to muzzle the press and deny the American people the transparency and accountability they deserve.”

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell pushed back on the concerns from media outlets over the new policy. 

“It should come as no surprise that the mainstream media is once again misrepresenting the Pentagon’s press procedures,” he wrote Wednesday on X. 

“Let’s be absolutely clear: journalists are not required to clear their stories with us. This claim is a lie,” he added. “Have an escort in sensitive areas. Wear a press credential. Don’t encourage our people to violate DoW policy. Pretty simple.”

In a letter responding to concerns from the Reporters Committee, Parnell said rules about the release of information applied to Pentagon employees, not to reporters. However, he said press access could be impacted if reporters are involved in violations of rules related to classified national security information (CNSI) and controlled unclassified information (CUI).

“Receipt of unsolicited information and subsequent publication-even of CNSI or CUI-is generally constitutionally protected and would not normally, on its own, trigger revocation. However, in rare, extreme cases where publication recklessly endangers American lives, it could factor into an assessment of whether continued unescorted access to the Pentagon poses a security risk,” he wrote. 

“Moreover, if a reporter solicits the gathering and providing of such information for use in the reporter’s work or is otherwise aware of and encourages the actions, such actions may also weigh in this consideration. This aligns with First Amendment precedent, including that which holds that the First Amendment does not immunize conduct facilitating legal violations, while preserving broad protections for publication.”

SPJ called the Pentagon’s response “disingenuous.”

“The language within its own memo is clear, stating that all information ‘must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.’ That is not normal press procedure it is prior restraint,” it said in a statement Thursday.

“Journalists are not employees of the Department of War. They should never be asked to abide by restrictions intended for government staff. Suggesting otherwise is a dangerous blurring of roles that undermines critical independent reporting.”

The government and the press have long butted heads over the publication of secret or sensitive information, most notably with the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The documents, which were labeled “Top Secret Sensitive,” laid bare the fact that the Lyndon B. Johnson administration for years had misled the public about the course of the Vietnam War. The papers’ publication by The New York Times and later The Washington Post led to a landmark Supreme Court fight that upheld the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

The Pentagon’s new rules take a further step by seeking to restrict reporting on unclassified information.  

George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley on Monday warned that the Pentagon press policy may be a “bridge too far” as there is no precedent for such rules on reporters.

“What they’re basically saying is if you publish anything that’s not in the press release, is not the official statement of the Pentagon, you could be held responsible under this policy,” he said Monday on Fox News’s “Special Report.” 

“That is going to create a stranglehold on the free press. And the cost is too great.”

The controversy has even caught the attention of television host Jimmy Kimmel, who returned to the airwaves on Tuesday after executives at ABC parent company Disney pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air last week over his comments about the suspected shooter of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

“They want to pick and choose what the news is. I know that’s not as interesting as muzzling a comedian, but it’s so important to have a free press and it is nuts that we aren’t paying more attention to it,” Kimmel said of the new Pentagon restrictions in his opening monologue.

It’s unclear if the new restrictions have the backing of President Trump. Asked on Sunday if the Pentagon should decide what the media can cover, he replied, “No, I don’t think so. Nothing stops reporters.”

The new rules are a continuation of Hegseth’s crackdown on press access and accommodations in the Pentagon despite often boasting about transparency. 

His office in late January booted four outlets from their Pentagon workspaces in favor of other media outlets, including Breitbart News and One America News Network, that have seemingly given the Trump administration more favorable coverage. When reporters complained to Hegseth’s office about the move, officials removed four additional news outlets, including The Hill, from their desks.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, in May made certain hallways of the Pentagon off-limits to journalists without an official escort a major change as reporters previously had access throughout much of the building without an escort.

The new memo seems to further limit reporters’ movement, noting that if news outlets require access to other areas or offices within the Pentagon for in-person interviews or other engagements, “they must be escorted to and from those spaces by authorized” personnel.

In addition, Hegseth has made the Pentagon press briefing room off-limits to reporters unless a briefing is taking place. The room had previously served as a place for reporters without a dedicated workspace to gain access to the internet to file stories from within the building. 

So far, Hegseth and his press officials have held fewer than 10 on-the-record briefings since the start of the year.