The New York Times (NYT) filed a lawsuit Thursday against the U.S. Department of War over its press policy that has frustrated some journalists.
The department’s policy prohibits journalists from entering the Pentagon if they did not comply with the rules surrounding how they perform their jobs, Fox News reported Thursday.
The outlet continued:
The Times claims the Pentagon violated the paper’s First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights when it implemented the policy, which the Times says gives the Pentagon “standardless discretion” to punish reporters without due process by revoking their press badges based on the policy’s “incurably vague language” on how they go about their newsgathering. The Times also alleges viewpoint discrimination, pointing to several reporters and outlets who were invited to Tuesday’s press briefing after having signed the Pentagon’s pledge and are outspoken supporters of President Donald Trump.
The Times on Thursday reported it was planning to sue the Pentagon after its rules took effect in October.
According to the newspaper’s claims, those standards “require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets limits on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to sources. The new guidelines are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope.”
The Fox article said, “The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., names the Times and its intelligence reporter Julian Barnes as the plaintiffs and lists the Department of War, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell as the defendants.”
In January, Hegseth began a program to remove several establishment media news outlets from their workspaces for one year to make room for new media outlets that included Breitbart News.
The Breitbart News article said, “Acting Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot issued a memo on Friday to the Pentagon Press Association announcing that the NBC News, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Politico must give up their physical workspaces in the Pentagon for one year to the New York Post, Breitbart News, and the Huffington Post.”
On October 14, the outlet said multiple journalists faced the deadline to sign the Pentagon access agreement or hand over their credentials. The Times was one of the outlets that said they would not comply.
The following day, several journalists handed in their badges and cleared their workspaces after refusing to adhere to the policy.
Parnell defended the policy by stating, “The policy does not ask for them to agree, just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is. This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”
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