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."

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on this article.

Hegseth often talks about bringing a warfighting mentality to the Pentagon. His hostile approach to the media comes at the detriment of the American public, said Jonathan Katz, senior director for the Anti-Corruption, Democracy and Security Project at the Brookings Institution.

“Americans need to understand what's happening in the Department of Defense because it's critical to U.S. national security and to their everyday lives,” Katz told The Hill. “Right now it looks like the Pentagon, led by Mr. Hegseth, is doing everything it can do to not share critical information with the public. That is problematic.”

Since the start of President Trump’s second term, the Defense Department has transformed how it typically engages with the press, largely shunning........

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