It's a great thing they are not backing down. Given how many institutions have complied in advance, we need as many exemplars of better behaviour as possible.

Economically this makes sense. Those companies that sign are relegated to essentially just republishing press releases, so there's little value in employing someone just to do that.

Can they sue, and if they do are they likely to win? My laymans gut feeling is they will lose because the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities. However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech? Would be great to hear a more informed take.

• fnordpiglet

  today at 5:47 AM

  Smarter, they just dont cover the propaganda from inside, they dig the truth from those inside.

  The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.

  There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.

  • generic92034

    today at 7:10 AM

    > I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.

    So, who is owning the media publishing the investigative journalism? Will they risk shaking the grass, considering the powers that be?

    • djkoolaide

      today at 7:54 AM

      404 Media is a great place to start.

      • yupyupyups

        today at 9:34 AM

        paywalled

        • robin_reala

          today at 9:54 AM

          What’s wrong with that?

• altacc

  today at 9:03 AM

  It seems less about access and more about agreeing to the principle that publishing anything unapproved, or even asking anyone for more information than is not approved, is a national security risk and press privileges will be revoked if they do that. It's an attempt by the government to control what the press publishes through coercion, aka chilling.

• terminalshort

  today at 9:11 AM

  Either everyone as the right or no one does. If they can't exclude media orgs, then I get to go too.

Didn't expect to see Newsman on that list

• platevoltage

  today at 6:10 AM

  They believe the pendulum will swing the other way, which is honestly surprising.

• strathmeyer

  today at 6:54 AM

  [dead]

Reporters can't wander around the Pentagon asking government employees questions.

That's the rule, right?

• simonw

  today at 9:44 AM

  No.

  From https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/new-policy-access-...

  > The new policy says that Defense Department information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if unclassified.”

All out assault on the press.

• themafia

  today at 8:54 AM

  It's an assault on the truth and on the citizens. They clearly thought they could just buy the press. This even shows.. they were mostly correct in their assessment.

  • pjc50

    today at 9:29 AM

    Large sections of the press actively supported this, at the behest of their owners: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/28/nx-s1-5168416/washington-post...

    (I keep joking that other countries have state controlled media, but in the West we have media-controlled states)

https://archive.is/1PEdK

The real question who signed it?

• afavour

  today at 4:56 AM

  OANN.

  • platevoltage

    today at 6:17 AM

    OANN might as well be a high school newspaper at this point.

    • mulmen

      today at 6:51 AM

      Hey I was on the staff of my high school newspaper and we took our journalism very seriously.

  • jimt1234

    today at 5:22 AM

    Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

    • JumpCrisscross

      today at 6:41 AM

      > Wasn't OANN started by AT&T as a way to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term?

      "AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue," while "ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant" [1].

      That said, there is no evidence this was done "to push propaganda favoring the corporation-friendly tax package in Trump's first term.” Simpler: they chased Fox, Newsmax et al's dollars.

      [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-onea...

> Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?

Sounds like a real question from a real person.

• AdamN

  today at 6:41 AM

  Nobody has unrestricted access right now so not sure what they're saying.

• 0xEF

  today at 8:00 AM

  This is the type of dialogue we can continue to expect from people whose understanding of government and military operations comes from oorah films and delusions of grandeur.

• classified

  today at 6:46 AM

  From TFA:

  Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

  Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.

It honestly feels like they're trying to speedrun autocracy, but it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term. They've just weakened oversight and standards of decency that surely they will be crying about later. To be honest it's exhausting just listening to the adults supposedly running the strongest country in the world like a Twitter trolling session.

• Galanwe

  today at 7:22 AM

  > it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever

  I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.

  And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.

  • scottgg

    today at 7:28 AM

    There’s quite some fresh gerrymandering going on, and because folks already “tolerate” this, it’s just incremental heat in the pot.

• esseph

  today at 7:08 AM

  Dominion voting machines, the company falsely accused of rigging the election that also lead to the court case that got Tucker fired from Fox, were just acquired by a (R). This was to keep the elections Fair and Balanced.

  • actionfromafar

    today at 7:30 AM

    "Fair and balanced" in the same way some animals are more equal than others? I could see that. Was this ever debunked by the way? https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/new-starlink-election...

  • ta1243

    today at 8:13 AM

    I don't understand why Americans require machines to count. Dumping the ballots into a room and having dozens of people counting them while under the watch of all sorts of interested parties scales perfectly well.

    For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.

    Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.

    • terminalshort

      today at 9:13 AM

      That's not how it works everywhere else

• aredox

  today at 9:04 AM

  >Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term.

  Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.

  Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.

  Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.

  Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".

  Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).

  Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.

  I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.

  • bilekas

    today at 9:44 AM

    > I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.

    I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.

• drumhead

  today at 7:52 AM

  They're trying to wreck as much of the current governmental set us as they can do it'll almost impossible or very difficult to rebuild it. It's almost scorched earth, they think they're killing the "deep state"

  • jimbohn

    today at 9:02 AM

    I think the "deep state" crusade assumes a sort of good faith that it's obviously lacking in this administration, judging their intent from their behavior and outcomes paints a much scarier picture.

> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji.

> Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

> Hegseth answered, “yes.”

I know this is old man yelling at the clouds these days but good lord if we could have government officials that aren't terminally online...

• tombert

  today at 5:20 AM

  All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me. That's really not that hard, I'm not that smart, this isn't an unrealistic bar for politicians to cross.

  I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.

  • sdesol

    today at 6:10 AM

    > all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me

    I don't care if they are smarter than me. I need them to be smart enough to know they are not that smart. I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.

    • NL807

      today at 6:40 AM

      > I don't expect politicians to be smart. I expect them to be good listeners and be the voice for the people.

      I want both. I want them to be smart -- not necessarily domain expert smart, but reasonably smart with making life changing decisions for everyone. And base those decisions on recommendations made by domain experts.

  • omnimus

    today at 5:41 AM

    I live in non english european country. One of our problems is that huge number of our politicians (including foreign affairs ministry etc.) can't speak english. Education is not bad here. You have to have pretty high level english to pass any university. I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.

    But if you want to do international politics its fine because politicians don't have any formal requirements.

    So next time you see EU parlament footage where people have speeches in their native language… it's not out of national pride or respect. It's simply because many of them couldn't do it otherwise.

    • qart

      today at 6:27 AM

      I live in India. Nearly all parties appoint literal thugs as ministers. Let alone English literacy and fluency, they are not even competent in their own language. Here we have a minister of Kannada & Culture, whose first language is Kannada, struggling to write a common word in Kannada: https://x.com/tulunadregion/status/1886675464221286414

      > I mean many bars wont give you a job without passing english interview.

      We have a very similar situation in India. But ministers (and their supporters) now take perverse pride in not being good at English. They use our brief British rule as a scapegoat for half the things that are wrong with India. The other half is blamed on Mughal rule.

    • today at 8:05 AM

  • geeunits

    today at 5:32 AM

    The unfortunate reality is that the smartest people avoid politics.

    • generic92034

      today at 7:15 AM

      Lately they also seem to avoid science, to some degree. So, what occupation do they choose, in these days?

      • eep_social

        today at 7:24 AM

        finance and tech or wherever the money is best

  • nebula8804

    today at 8:04 AM

    >I can say with some confidence that an alcoholic Fox News talk show host is not smarter than me.

    Well he was valedictorian at his high school and graduated from Princeton University. I wonder if the Pete Hegseth from Princeton is the same Pete Hegseth today. I don't know, maybe he got messed up somehow during one of his three tours overseas serving in the military.

  • petesergeant

    today at 9:44 AM

    > All I want from politicians, and by this I mean literally all I want at this point, is my politicians to be smarter than me

    ... why? Ted Cruz is almost certainly smarter than almost all of us, and I do not want Ted Cruz to be a politician. Boris Johnson is exceptionally gifted, and Never Again. Rishi Sunak's as sharp a guy as you're likely to meet, but as the Economist noted, rarely met a bad idea he didn't warm to. You're giving a weird halo effect to intelligence.

  • platevoltage

    today at 6:13 AM

    He was actually just the weekend guy too. Just imagine, we could have had the weekday guy who said homeless people should be executed the other day.

• pjc50

  today at 9:33 AM

  Terminally online journos and terminally online voters got them there.

  It's remarkable how toxic that kind of social interaction turned out to be.

How absolutely cowardly the "Department of War" seems to be.

• ChiMan

  today at 5:08 AM

  You know the weakness of man from a mile away by the verbosity and volume of his "toughness."

  • annexrichmond

    today at 6:03 AM

    [flagged]

    • throwawaysleep

      today at 6:18 AM

      And that historic peace deal in decades would be?

      The last ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was in 2021.

      • pjc50

        today at 9:32 AM

        I'm sure the next one will be in 2027.

    • JumpCrisscross

      today at 6:44 AM

      > was aided by his "toughness", such as, you know, striking Iran

      Striking Iran didn't end hostilities in Gaza, Trump leaning on Egypt, Turkey and Qatar did [1]. (The Iran strikes might have worked because Hegseth was sidelined [2].)

      Hegseth is a wuss who couldn't cut it in the military. He's in place because he's loyal, probably compromised, and plays masculinity well on TV.

      [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/a-coordinated-squeeze-...

      [2] https://newrepublic.com/post/197005/trump-iran-plans-hegseth...

      • actionfromafar

        today at 7:18 AM

        A very kind of camp, drag masculinity.

    • platevoltage

      today at 6:24 AM

      The last ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was in January of this year, before he took office, but yes, he's a special boy for actually doing his job.

    • today at 6:15 AM

This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but American press outlets could stand to be a little less close to the Pentagon. They were given this access for a reason that was useful to the DoD / war department, which is something the Trump administration seems not to understand.

The quantity and intensity of stupidity exhibited in the linked tweet thread is truly exasperating. They want freedom of speech for themselves and a neutered press.

Good.

I feel like the GOP will eventually just have their own news media wing that will have exclusives to all their pressers. (And no, it won't be Fox News). They'll call it something similar to TruthSocial / Pravda. It's from the old Soviet playbook.

• piker

  today at 8:08 AM

  I had understood that Newsmax was part of that hypothetical system. Interesting they’re even taking a stand here.