Retired general: Pentagon trying to 'spoon-feed information' to journalists with crackdown

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane on Tuesday slammed the Pentagon policy that restricts journalists from reporting on unauthorized material and prevents them from entering certain areas without an escort.

“They want to spoon-feed information to the journalists, and that will be their story. That’s not journalism. Journalism is going out and finding the story and getting all the facts that support it,” Keane said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Special Report.”

“And no one’s going to walk in and bang on a door of a four-star general or senior civilian policy leader in the Pentagon. I never had that, but I did have journalists chasing a story of something that was going on in the Army. And those things were legitimate,” he told anchor Bret Baier.

Reporters have been asked to sign a pledge agreeing to adhere to the Pentagon’s demands or relinquish their badges.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has argued the policy, announced in September, is “commonsense” and prevents journalists from asking soldiers to “break the law” by providing classified information.

However, journalists would not be allowed to report on classified or unclassified information without approval from the Pentagon under the new policy.

Keane, who served as vice chief of staff for the U.S. Army, also said that news reports are often the Pentagon’s “conduit to the American people.”

“That’s how I always saw it and believed in supporting it," Keane told Fox News. 

"There were times when stories were done that made me flinch a little bit, yeah — but that's usually because we had done something that wasn't as good as we should've done it,” he added. 

The Pentagon’s new press guidelines come in stark contrast to previous years when press was granted access to certain areas for reporting purposes.

“The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press," ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media and NBC News said in a joint statement on the policy.

Other associations chimed in agreeing that the restrictions upend press freedoms and limit crucial coverage for citizens.

“The White House Correspondents’ Association and the State Department Correspondents’ Association stand in strong solidarity with the Pentagon Press Association as it defends freedom of the press,” the group wrote in a statement. 

“Access inside the Pentagon has never been about convenience to reporters. The public has a right to know how the government is conducting the people’s business. Unfettered reporting on the U.S. military and its civilian leadership provides a service to those in uniform, veterans, their families and all Americans,” they added. 

Despite media organizations voicing concerns, Hegseth has held firm to the new policy with unfettered support from the president.

On Monday, the Defense secretary said those who “fundamentally oppose” the restrictions will say farewell to their press passed in a post on X with the goodbye emoji. 

In January, the Pentagon removed multiple news outlets from their in-house workspaces to provide desks to conservative operations. Other news outlets were removed after raising objections to the rearrangement. 

“Despite good faith negotiations with representatives of the Pentagon Press Association, reporters would rather clutch their pearls on social media than stop trying to get warfighters and DOW civilians to commit a crime by violating Department-wide policy,” Defense Department press secretary Kingsley Wilson wrote in a statement on X last week.

“Even the New York Times praised us for accommodating the press! Victimhood mentality among the press is played out and embarrassing. We stand by our media policy. It's now up to them whether they'd like to report from the Pentagon or their newsroom,” she added.