The Defense Department’s relationship with reporters has gone from bad to worse following a string of missives from Secretary Pete Hegseth and his office aimed at controlling the Pentagon press corps.
Hegseth’s war on the media includes taking desks away from legacy outlets, locking the doors to one of the few places reporters have access to the internet in the Pentagon, and restricting their movement within the building.
Compounding the breakdown in media relations is a staffing shortage in the Pentagon’s public affairs shop, with at least 12 officials in the office reportedly leaving in recent weeks. The office officially held 32 people at the start of the year.
That has left one of the government’s largest agencies often unresponsive amid a steady stream of scandals and public relations snafus, though it maintains an active “DOD Rapid Response” account on the social platform X, which posted on Saturday, “we will always deliver on our promise of transparency.”
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