The United States Department of Defense has banned journalists from accessing its press office after announcing that this space will become a “sensitive facility” due to the presence in the same building of officials who routinely handle classified material.
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“The Pentagon press office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) because the speechwriters from the Secretary of War’s office share the facility,” said Department of Defense spokesperson Joel Valdez on his social media.
In this regard, he pointed out that these officials handle “classified material and require access” to SIPRNet, a secret communication network operated by the Department of Defense. “As a result, journalists will no longer be able to enter the office space. There is nothing controversial about that,” he defended.
The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Jodie Ginsberg, stated this Tuesday that this designation of the room as a “classified space” does not make the Pentagon “safer,” but rather makes it “less transparent.” “This is the latest escalation in a broader campaign to restrict press access,” she argued.
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The announcement comes after a federal judge blocked key parts of a measure pushed by the Trump Administration that prohibited journalists from publishing military information without prior authorization from the Department of Defense, a policy challenged by the newspaper ‘The New York Times’.
The Trump Administration, which appealed the ruling, meanwhile pushed a provisional policy to prohibit journalists from accessing the building without an escort, a measure that was also legally challenged by the aforementioned newspaper, which argued that it violated the First Amendment and was “an unconstitutional attempt to prevent the publication of independent information on military matters.”
The mandatory escort measure is currently in effect amid the legal dispute. A large group of journalists handed in their credentials in October 2025 in protest of the restrictions pushed by the Pentagon.
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