Former CNNPentagon correspondent Barbara Starr on Thursday excoriated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for demanding that all journalists at the Pentagon sign a document restricting what they can cover — or lose their access to the headquarters building entirely.
Starr appeared on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” to discuss the matter after Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced “the next generation” press corps on social media Wednesday, and claimed it represents “a broad spectrum” of outlets and reporters.
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The “broad” spectrum reportedly includes outlets such as Turning Point USA, Real America’s Voice and LindellTV, which have all favorably covered President Donald Trump and his administration. When asked for her reaction Thursday, Starr went on a tear.
“I just absolutely reject the Pentagon’s assertion that there is a new Pentagon press corps that they have announced,” she said. “That’s not how the world works in this country with a free press. There are … hundreds of journalists that continue to cover the Pentagon who did not sign up to the new restrictive rules, who are continuing to do their jobs every day.”
Parnell wrote in his announcement that 26 journalists from 18 outlets have decided to keep their access by signing the document and that more than 60 people now comprise the new press corps. He said those who refused “chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”
The new guidelines are so unconstitutional that even Fox News has declined to opt in.
Starr noted Thursday that Parnell likened the principled refusal of news outlets to “criminal behavior,” as his use of the term “self-deport” might denote. She went on to suggest that the only apparent journalists left at the Pentagon will be biased “political influencers.”
“So reporters are continuing to report and they’re breaking scoops every single day from outside the Pentagon, and Mr. Hegseth may find that he is going to continue … finding breaking news stories that he has no idea are even coming at him,” Starr told Blitzer.
She continued, “I think it’s a shame, Wolf.”
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Starr went on to argue that there’s “plenty of room” for new media and legacy media to coexist, and that this actual broad spectrum of political coverage could lead us “into a more modern age.” She noted that the best American news organizations are already doing so.
“But to hurl insults and to rely on political influencers, it’s not journalism, and it’s not what the First Amendment and the free press is really all about in this country,” Starr said Thursday. “It’s about protecting reporters, not political influencers.”
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