《纽约时报》就新新闻政策将五角大楼告上法庭

The New York Times (NYT) said Thursday it is suing the Pentagon after it implemented a new policy on U.S. military reporting, which the newspaper alleges violates its journalists' First and Fifth Amendment rights.

The newspaper claimed its journalists are at risk of losing their "Pentagon Facilities Alternate Credential" if they publish anything that has not been approved by the government officials under the new policy.

The 41-page lawsuit claims that the Pentagon's new policy will deprive the public of vital information about the American military and its leadership, and the policy seeks to restrict journalists' ability "to ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements."

"The Pentagon has made clear that lawful, routine newsgathering techniques—asking questions of government employees and interviewing them for stories—whether on or off Pentagon grounds could, in the Department's view,  "constitute a solicitation that could lead to revocation" of their PFACs," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit notably includes War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell as defendants and NYT's U.S. intelligence agencies reporter Julian Barnes as a plaintiff. The case is The New York Times Company v. Department of Defense, Civil Case No. 25-4218, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Earlier this year, major news outlets, including NYT, Reuters (NASDAQ:TRI), The Wall Street Journal (NASDAQ:NWS) (NASDAQ:NWSA), Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, CNN (NASDAQ:WBD), Fox News (NASDAQ:FOX) (NASDAQ:FOXA), CBS (NASDAQ:PSKY), NBC (NASDAQ:CMCSA), ABC (NYSE:DIS), NPR, Axios, Politico, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and Newsmax (NYSE:NMAX), objected to the Pentagon's press policy.

News outlets argued that the Pentagon's new policy threatened to criminalize national security reporting and restrict the gathering of even unclassified information not pre-approved for release.

So far, only one major national news outlet, One America News Network, has publicly signed the new press policy.

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