No sooner had former President Joe Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board been announced than it was ridiculed into oblivion. The board was the Biden administration’s effort to counter and even squelch information and opinions it didn’t agree with. Now, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is attempting to squelch what he considers to be disinformation about the military — only he’s targeting the media.
The Disinformation Governance Board was unveiled on April 27, 2022, as part of the Department of Homeland Security. Its stated purpose was “countering misinformation and disinformation.” Critics quickly compared the board to George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” in his novel “1984.” That ministry existed to produce government-approved propaganda and lies.
Within three weeks, the 33-year-old liberal woman appointed to lead the board resigned. The board was paused, never to raise its Orwellian head again.
Liberals may have learned a lesson from that embarrassing chapter. Apparently, Hegseth hasn’t.
The secretary of War wants journalists covering the military and Pentagon to sign a document affirming they understand new restrictions on the media’s ability to roam the halls of the Pentagon, among other restrictions. Refusal to sign means exclusion from the Pentagon and its press briefings.
But there’s one requirement that has nearly all media organizations pushing back — the Department of War claimed it was committed to “transparency” and “accountability,” but “information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” according to the new policy.
It is bizarre, even Orwellian, to claim that forcing journalists to pledge not to publish unapproved information is a commitment to “transparency” and “accountability,” or that it would enhance public trust.
Virtually all major news organizations, including the Trump-friendly Fox News, Newsmax and the Washington Times, have so far refused to sign the pledge. The London-based Independent reported Sunday that “the only journalists left with credentials to enter the Pentagon were a mix of freelancers, foreign media members and staffers from MAGA-boosting outlets.”
Most news organizations see this “mother-may-I” pledge as a violation of the First Amendment and the freedom of the press. And they’re right.
The Pentagon’s concern is leaks to the media. Hegseth has seen a number of — how should we say it? — unflattering stories emerge in his nine-month tenure. From a multi-person discussion over the unsecured social media platform Signal of arguably classified information that was sent to the editor of the Atlantic, to accusations of chaos at the Pentagon, Hegseth is eager to stop leaks that make him look bad.
But every administration deals with leaks to the press. Usually, the administration tries to crack down on the leakers, not on the journalists who report the leaks. Leaks, after all, can expose wrongdoing in government.
Every administration makes missteps and mistakes that it would prefer not to be exposed. Think of President Dwight Eisenhower and his denial that the United States was surveilling Russia. That lasted until the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers in a U-2 spy plane exposed the action.
Or consider President Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs incident. Or President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Or President Jimmy Carter’s failed effort to rescue American hostages in Iran. Or President Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal.
More recently, consider President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Had the media been required to get Department of Defense approval of its reports, the public might never have known how bungled and disastrous it was.
And there may be potential failures already in progress. President Trump has authorized the bombing of boats close to Venezuela that the military believes are engaging in drug smuggling. But the navy isn’t stopping the boats and boarding them to verify that suspicion before bombing.
Intelligence failures do occur. If the navy did destroy a boat, only to find out later the boat was full of innocent people, including women and children, the military and the administration would prefer that information not get out.
Worse yet, besides squelching negative reports, Pentagon officials might strongly imply that approval depended on the reporter including some positive comments about the president and the administration.
With these speech restrictions in place, few people would trust the military spokespeople, because the public would know that the media wasn’t free to counter the military’s claims. Pentagon approval of press reporting doesn’t guarantee the media report the truth. It only guarantees the government decides what the truth is.
Both Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board and Hegseth’s mother-may-I pledge are government-imposed attempts to control information, both true and false. Biden’s board was rightly ridiculed and was quickly canceled. Hegseth’s pledge should face a similar embarrassing fate.
Merrill Matthews is a co-author of “On the Edge: America Faces the Entitlements Cliff.”
