Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather than agreeing new rules

Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by contrarian1234 on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:07AM (#45603096)

While what the government is doing more widely is quite scary, this in isolation seems sensible?

I don't really get what the journalists' role is? To goad and harass employees of the Department of defense in to slipping up and saying more than they should? To encourage people to leak information?

Given the secretive nature of the whole institution, It seems sensible that there is some formal process for deciding what information should and shouldn't be shared. The previous setup seems sort of insane.

If the army is putting babies on spikes and it needs to be leaked.. it seems that that should happen outside of the Pentagon itself and shouldn't involve getting some government approved badge...

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by ZvG_Bonjwa on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:32AM (#45603258)

Without proper press access how is there any real accountability?

Leaks and whistleblowers do not form in a vacuum. Less press means less oversight, fewer connections built, fewer threads pulled.

And even so, not all Pentagon business is all “life-and-death-top-secret”. Censorious governments LOVE the “national security” excuse.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by contrarian1234 on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:39AM (#45603324)

Accountable in what sense? How are journalists trying to pry extra info from staff helpful? If they want to ask questions at press conferences and whatnot - as far as I understand they still can?

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by ohdeardear on Thursday October 16, 2025 @06:30AM (#45603709)

> Without proper press access how is there any real accountability?

No.

Real accountability is that the people can torture their leaders when they fail, but that just doesn't happen anymore.

Imagine that this was just a big rock and Trump was sitting on top of the rock like with a group of apes. Also, let's assume that Trump had set fire on the entire banana supply. Do you think the apes would not have picked a different leader immediately?

Rational people would understand that if you make people lose billions that there should be consequences, but someone the world population is more stupid than a bunch of apes.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by postexitus on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:16AM (#45603142)

Free Press is part of checks and balances. If you are going to rely on leaks for this stuff to come out, you are going to have a bad time.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by contrarian1234 on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:26AM (#45603219)

isn't what they're doing at the pentagon essentially getting people to leak stuff?

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by postexitus on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:32AM (#45603259)

by questioning them publicly and holding them to account. That's not a leak. That's keeping people in check (or force them to lie in front of camera). Remove that and you only rely on Edward Snowdens of the world.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by contrarian1234 on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:37AM (#45603307)

My understanding is they want off-the-record information from unnamed sources. These aren't public questions like at a press conference. Those can still occur under the current rules.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by postexitus on Thursday October 16, 2025 @08:30AM (#45604533)

If they publish off-the-record information without approval of authorities, they will no longer be accredited to attend press conferences. Of course no self-respecting reporter is going to accept this - if you do, next step is "if you publish lies about our president, you will not be accredited" - trust me, I know, this is how it starts.

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Re:Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather t... by trhway on Thursday October 16, 2025 @05:26AM (#45603217)

https://econofact.org/factbrief/has-the-pentagon-failed-its-...

"In November 2024, the Pentagon failed to pass its annual audit, meaning that it wasn't able to fully account for how its $824 billion budget was used. This was the 7th failed audit in a row, since the Department of Defense became required to undergo yearly-audits in 2018."

Kicking journalists out would probably not make things more auditable so to speak.

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