The New York Times building photographed on September 16, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
The New York Times filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging new restrictions on reporters covering the Pentagon, saying they violate the U.S. Constitution’s freedom of the press protections.
The lawsuit against the Pentagon and Secretary Pete Hegseth comes nearly two months after reporters from the Times and other mainstream news outlets, including CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC, staged a dramatic walkout from the Pentagon, refusing to comply with rules and surrendering their credentials.
Those outlets have been replaced by reporters broadly sympathetic to the Trump administration.
In October, the Pentagon presented its reporters with a 21-page rulebook that prohibits reporters from soliciting or publishing information that is not explicitly authorized by the Pentagon, even if it is unclassified or obtained off-site.
Outlets that refused to follow the rules were disqualified from the Department of Defense.
The Times’ lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asks a judge to block the Pentagon from enforcing the policy and declare it unconstitutional.
“This policy violates the First Amendment and seeks to limit journalists’ ability to do what they have always done: question public officials, gather information, and report to the public beyond official statements,” the complaint says.
The rule “deprives the public of critical information about the U.S. military and its leadership,” the complaint says.
The complaint also says the Pentagon has been given “unlimited discretion” to enforce regulations as it sees fit.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told CNBC that the Pentagon is “aware of the New York Times lawsuit and looks forward to addressing these arguments in court.”
The Times immediately responded to a request for comment.
The Pentagon’s media rules were the latest step in Mr. Hegseth’s broader effort to reshape the press corps.
Since arriving at the department in January after a contentious confirmation battle, Mr. Hegseth has stripped several domestic broadcasters of in-house work space, tightened rules on where reporters can move in buildings and reassigned offices to conservative and pro-Trump media outlets willing to sign the deal.
Press freedom advocates, including the Reporters Committee for a Free Press, argue that the Pentagon’s policy goes beyond past disputes over individual White House press badges. They argue that the rule, rather than targeting one reporter at a time, gives the Pentagon broad authority to bind the entire press corps and revoke access based on the stories they pursue.
“The Pentagon’s media access policy is illegal because it gives government officials unfettered authority over who is and is not eligible, prohibited by the First Amendment,” Gabe Lottman, vice chairman for policy at the Committee on Freedom of the Press, said in a statement Thursday after the Times filed the lawsuit.
