Pace around the E-ring of the Pentagon -- the outer loop of offices where senior leaders have rare windows facing the outside world -- and you will find a display honouring the journalists who cover America's wars and the lives of its military personnel. On the left, a panel lists the names and affiliation of accredited reporters. On the right, a digital screen flicks through portraits of journalists "killed in the line of duty". Whenever I visited the Pentagon, I was always glad to see my picture among the living rather than the fallen.
As far as I can tell, I was the first correspondent for The Economist accredited by the Pentagon. Now I may also be the last. Along with scores of colleagues from other publications, on October 15th I handed in my badge rather than accept new restrictions on media reporting. I arrived at the end of the day, after most of the other journalists had left. The "bullpen" where they worked could have been a scene from a revolution or war -- a place whose old occupants have suddenly left but whose new ones have yet to arrive.
In a sense this was a revolutionary moment -- a rupture in the relationship between the American government and the media. For the first time since the Eisenhower administration, the Pentagon no longer has an independent resident media corps to speak of. Between the packing boxes and computer cables, someone had left a copy of the American constitution. Its First Amendment holds that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". For the departed correspondents, Pete Hegseth, the "Secretary of War", has been trying to do just that.
Was the walkout righteous indignation, or just a display self-righteous hacks who "chose to self-deport", as Sean Parnell, Mr Hegseth's chief spokesman, put it? The Pentagon has been hitherto unique in its openness. No other defence ministry in the world that I can think of allows journalists to take up permanent space in its corridors and wander more or less freely. Then again, the Pentagon is no ordinary office building. It is more like a city in itself, with an internal mall that includes a post office, dry cleaner, shoe-shining booth, pharmacy and various shops and restaurants. In other words, it is teeming with people who have no security clearance, even though Mr Hegseth calls it "the most classified area in the world". The truly sensitive areas are behind locked doors, and journalists are not admitted.
This is not to say that generals and politicians always like the hacks in their midst. Yet they have usually respected themand even non-American journalists, like myself, have been welcomed. I would pass the electronic gates with a tap of my card and roam the corridors and public spaces as I pleased. The Pentagon consists of concentric rings, from A, which encircles an inner courtyard, to E on the outer perimeter, with numbered corridors linking them. Wood-panelled sections mark the workplaces of the top civilian and military leaders, including Room 3E880: Mr Hegseth's office. Veteran hacks knew the best spots to intercept a source. Even generals have to go to , winks one. Correspondents would sometimes be told not to leave the building because of an impending operation. Journalists' "happy hours" would be attended by the friendlier sort of senior officials, at least until the covid pandemic limited physical contact.
The arrival of the second Trump administration changed things drastically. Though a former presenter himself, Mr Hegseth dislikes talking to journalists, and especially hates leaks about strife and chaos among his advisers. Some mainstream journalists were evicted from their cubicles to make way for conservative media. Then parts of the building were declared out of bounds to journalists.
The final breach came with new media guidelines. Journalists were required to sign them or lose their badges, and would have to agree to new conditions on the release of information. A first draft seemed to tell journalists to submit stories for approval. A second made clear that those regulations applied only to military personnel and officials, but journalists "should understand" the consequences of unauthorised disclosure. Such ambiguous wording, coupled with Mr Hegseth's strident accusation that journalists were seeking to "solicit criminal acts", appeared to expose reporters to a legal risk if they signed. Even Fox News, Mr Hegseth's former employer, preferred to walk out. The delicious irony is that Mr Hegseth himself is the source of the biggest leak of classified information this year, by posting details of military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in a chat on Signal, a commercial messaging app, in March that somehow included a journalist among a group of senior officials
The media clear-out on October 15th was bittersweet, as journalists shared mementos of wars and stories past. Around 4pm, dozens of them filed out, surrendered their badges and, now officially outsiders, required an escort to depart.
Repairing to a bar later on, we heard of the funereal mood among the uniformed press officers and of officials quietly promising to stay in touch. Some reporters were filing stories, their laptops open next to beers and pizza. Which bar, we mused, should become the new bullpen? As I left the Pentagon, the correspondents' board had pitifully few names left. The tribute to fallen colleagues -- "they fought and died in the battle to report the truth" -- now stood as a rebuke to the man hiding in Room 3E880. His response to those who protested against his restrictions? A series of hand-wave emojis on X.
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