The United States Department of Defense released a memo on Sept. 18 requiring journalists reporting from inside the Pentagon to only report on information explicitly authorized for release.
The memo outlined several guidelines for journalists reporting from the Pentagon, stating that any information “must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”
The memo was met with immediate push back from journalists across the country. A few days after the announcement, the Society of Professional Journalists denounced the new requirement, condemning its restrictions on the First Amendment.
“This policy reeks of prior restraint — the most egregious violation of press freedom under the First Amendment — and is a dangerous step toward government censorship,” the SPJ wrote in a Sept. 20 news release. “Attempts to silence the press under the guise of ‘security’ are part of a disturbing pattern of growing government hostility toward transparency and democratic norms.”
Jon Schleuss, the president of The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America and a former USC Annenberg adjunct professor, said the decision could ultimately prevent journalists from reporting on crucial information for their audiences.
“[It] violates every American’s first amendment right to a free press by trying to create restraint on future journalistic activities, by suggesting and saying and demanding that only official sources inside the Pentagon can be the ones to provide information,” Schleuss said.
Current USC Annenberg professors said now is a particularly important time to support truthful and hard-hitting journalism.
“I don’t want [the memo] to impact how Annenberg journalists do any stories,” said Mary Murphy, an associate professor of professional practice of journalism at USC Annenberg. “The role of the journalist, at least for me, in covering politics, is to tell the truth, not to ask permission.”
Earlier this week, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which provides pro bono legal services for journalists and newsrooms, sent a letter to Sean Parnell, the Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs, outlining several concerns and urging the Pentagon to meet with the organization as soon as possible.
“We see many ambiguities in the language of the in-brief form that would make it difficult — if not impossible — for news organizations to decide whether to sign the form,” the letter read. “We urge the Department to pause implementation of the in-brief process until all of its ambiguous terms are clarified and respectfully request a meeting with Pentagon leadership to discuss these issues.”
Parnell responded on Sept. 24, and said that the memo did not place restrictions on journalists, but rather outlined the department’s “information security requirements, physical control measures, and expectations for compliance with safety and security protocols.”
Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed classified plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen in a Signal chat that included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, prompting concerns about the administration’s security protocols.
Parnell also offered to meet with the RCPF for further discussion, but stated that the brief “does not infringe upon First Amendment protections.”
However, David Snyder, the executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, said there could not be a “more plain violation of the First Amendment.”
“The government has and can have no role in making decisions about publications by independent news organizations,” he said, noting that journalists should be standing up against what appeared to be a “plainly unconstitutional policy.”
Murphy said that it was her understanding that the RCFP was working with the Trump administration to make it clear that journalists would not sign the pledge.
“This is a complicated battle that requires not only journalists but the editors to tell the truth,” Murphy said. “I think journalists are stronger in fighting back than almost anybody else.”
Trent Winston, a sophomore political science major, said the memo has intensified his skepticism of journalism coming out of the Pentagon.
“It seems like this administration is dead set on making sure that dissenting views or anything that goes against their own narrative doesn’t reach the American people, which is very, very scary,” Winston said.
The DOD’s decision also comes after the comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was briefly suspended by ABC, following comments made about President Trump and the recent killing of Charlie Kirk, which sparked national debate about the future of free speech in the United States.
Cissie Jiang, a second-year graduate student of digital social media, said that as someone who is originally from China, the memo heightened her disillusionment with free speech in the U.S.
“My parents wanted me to have the freedom to express myself; that’s why they pushed me to go to school here,” she said. “So what I’m seeing now is a little shocking.”