Pentagon closes office space for journalists after judge’s ruling on building press policy

The Defense Department will issue new press credentials but is still looking to keep some reporters out of the building by closing its media offices after a federal judge ruled last week that the Pentagon’s restrictive press policy was unconstitutional. 

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., sided with The New York Times, which had sued the Trump administration for banning journalists who refused to sign a contract that put limitations on how they could solicit or report on information on the military.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell on Monday said the agency disagrees with the ruling and will appeal, but in the meantime he has signed a revised press policy that shutters the Correspondents’ Corridor – the area from which reporters worked at the Pentagon – “effective immediately.”

The Correspondents’ Corridor has largely sat empty since October, when journalists who refused to sign the Pentagon’s press policy had their badges revoked. Reporters can still access the building without a badge, but only via escort – including to and from the bathroom.

“In assessing the Department’s security posture following the court’s removal of all security screening authority, the Department determined that unescorted access to the Pentagon cannot be responsibly maintained without the ability to screen credential holders for security risks,” Parnell said in a statement. “Effective immediately, the Correspondents’ Corridor is closed.” 

Parnell added that a new press workspace will be established in an “annex facility” still on Pentagon grounds but outside the building, and “will be available when ready.”

Journalists that do go to the Pentagon also must be escorted by authorized personnel while there, according to the statement.

“The Department remains committed to transparency and to working with credentialed journalists who cover the Department and the U.S. military,” Parnell writes. “The Department is equally committed to the security of the Pentagon and the protection of the men and women who work there. The revised policy reflects both commitments.”

The revised policy appears to try to wrestle back control over press coverage in the building after Friedman dealt a major blow to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to keep certain outlets from the Pentagon’s halls.

Friedman struck down the requirement that journalists must sign a pledge not to obtain or use material that wasn’t specifically approved of by defense officials, even if it was unclassified. More than 50 reporters, including from The Hill, refused to sign the agreement and were denied a press badge as a result. 

“A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription,” wrote Friedman, an appointee of former President Clinton.

“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech,” he added in his opinion. “That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”

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