Media outlets, including Fox News and pro-Trump Newsmax, refuse to sign Pentagon's press access rules

The Pentagon is telling beat reporters to sign restrictive new rules by today or surrender their press passes by tomorrow.

Virtually every news outlet is rejecting the ultimatum and saying they will not sign.

The Pentagon Press Association, a body that represents the beat reporters, says the new policy championed by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth "gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release".

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In a statement on Monday, the association said that "potential expulsion from the Pentagon should be a concern to all".

Last month, Hegseth's press office outlined new rules requiring beat reporters to sign a pledge not to obtain or use unauthorised material, even if the information is unclassified.

Any journalist who doesn't sign the pledge, Hegseth said, risks losing physical access to the Pentagon — something that has been a standard part of Washington-area news coverage for decades.

ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News and Fox News (where Hegseth was an on-air host for a decade) issued a joint statement today afternoon condemning the new rules and refusing to sign the paperwork.

"Today, we join virtually every other news organisation in declining to agree to the Pentagon's new requirements, which would restrict journalists' ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues," the statement read.

"The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.

"We will continue to cover the US military as each of our organisations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press."

Beyond the big cable and broadcast networks, Reuters, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and NPR have all said that journalists from their newsrooms will not sign on to the Pentagon's restrictions.

Editors and reporters across all these news outlets have said they'll continue to thoroughly cover the US military, with or without press credentials.

Some well-known members of the Pentagon press corps have used the credentialing controversy to encourage tipsters to get in touch with them.

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Even Newsmax rejects the rules

Some partisan media outlets have also raised objections: Newsmax, the pro-Trump cable channel and website, said on Monday that its reporters have no plans to sign either.

"We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon with review the matter further," Newsmax said in a statement.

The only media outlet that has publicly accepted the Pentagon's rules is One America News, a MAGA outlet that stands further to the right of Newsmax and Fox News.

The Pentagon Press Association said Hegseth and other officials have been "systematically limiting access to information about the US military" all year long.

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Officials have stopped holding routine news briefings; they have booted many news outlets from Pentagon workspaces; and severely limited where reporters can go inside the building without an escort.

Analysts have connected these impediments to Hegseth's well-documented disdain for the press and frustration with leaks.

The association said on Monday that "this effort has culminated" in the rollout of "vague new policies that, on their face, appear to violate the First Amendment".

While the policies were revised by Pentagon press aides after negotiations with news outlets, the updated language is still unacceptable to many newsroom leaders and media lawyers.

Possible legal action

Some news outlets are said to be contemplating legal action, but in the meantime, they're publicly stating that the restrictions are, as Post executive editor Matt Murray said on Monday, "unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information".

The association said Monday that the Pentagon's new language "is particularly problematic because it demands reporters to express an 'understanding' that harm inevitably flows from the disclosure of unauthorised information, classified or not — something everyone involved knows to be untrue".

Hegseth has ridiculed some of the media concerns and embraced the dispute on social media.

He claimed on Monday that the new rules boiled down to three tenets: "Press no longer roams free," "press must wear visible badge," and "credentialed press no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts".

He also responded to several outlets' statements on social media with an emoji waving goodbye.

Beat reporters responded on X by saying Hegseth was misleading the public.

The press association said "longstanding press access rules posed no national security threat, which is why those rules continued without problem for decades, across multiple administrations of both political parties".

Critics of the new rules perceive that the defence secretary's real intent is to impede independent coverage and scrutiny of the Trump administration.

The dispute is ultimately about newsrooms striving to produce "trustworthy, independent journalism to the American public," free of government influence, as NPR editor in chief Thomas Evans said in a statement on Monday.

"We urge the Pentagon and the Administration to uphold freedom of the press and the American people's right to know what is done in their name," Evans said.