The U.S. Defense Department will remove media offices from the Pentagon after a federal judge sided with The New York Times in a lawsuit challenging limits on reporters’ access to the building, a department official announced Monday.
An area of the Pentagon known as “Correspondents’ Corridor” that reporters have used for decades to cover the U.S. military will close immediately, department spokesperson Sean Parnell said. Journalists will eventually be able to work from an “annex” outside the building, which he said “will be available when ready.” He offered no detail about how long that will take.
The Pentagon Press Association said the announcement “is a clear violation of the letter and spirit of last week’s ruling.”
It is absolutely a weird argument
Journalists report on what has happened and what is currently happening. They don’t know if their info on what is going to happen is accurate. If they report the information and nothing happens, they lose credibility. If they report the information and people die as a result (or at least more than would have died without reporting), they would be charged with leaking Intel and likely held responsible, at least partially, for those deaths.
It is a no-win scenario to report on things like this before it happens. And that’s really uncomfortable - real human lives could be saved, and there is a mechanism for disseminating information to get the word out and make a difference. But it’s also impossible to know the accuracy of the information, it’s impossible to know if it’s deliberately misleading, it’s impossible to know the true goals of releasing such information to a news organization before the events unfold - for all we know, this was a test by the administration, and if they failed the entire company could be shuttered.
It’s easy to get frustrated with news outlets based on what they do and don’t report, but there is usually logic behind their reasoning.
How would reporters be charged with leaking intel? They’re not government employees with security clearances. The people leaking the Intel are the people working for the government. Furthermore “nothing happening” is the ideal outcome and wouldn’t make the reporting less credible as the facts haven’t changed one bit.