Hegseth lacked anything resembling traditional qualifications for his post when President Donald Trump appointed him, having instead spent years working for Fox News. And while his most extensive work experience is at a media company, he was by no means a reporter. A right-wing host of the network’s weekend morning show, Hegseth shared the contempt for journalists that permeates much of the network’s programming, urging readers of his 2020 book to “disdain, despise, detest, [and] distrust” the news media.

As defense secretary, Hegseth has effectively made that comment the mission statement for the department’s press relations. He has mocked and derided reporters and torn apart his senior staff in search of media leakers. Soon after he took office, the department punished national news outlets by kicking them out of  their Pentagon work spaces and handing them off to right-wing publications. A few months later, new rules banned reporters from much of the Pentagon unless they were escorted by an approved member of the department. 

Hegseth and his department are historically lax in sharing information with the press and thus the public, as NPR reporter Tom Bowman, a 28-year veteran of the Pentagon press corps, noted:

Now, we're barely getting any information at all from the Pentagon. In the 10 months that the Trump administration has been in office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given just two briefings.

And there have been virtually no background briefings, which were common in the past whenever there has been military action anywhere in the world, as there has been with the recent bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities and of boats off the coast of Venezuela alleged to be carrying illicit drugs. In previous administrations, Defense Department officials — including the acerbic [Don] Rumsfeld — would hold regular press briefings, often twice a week. They knew the American people deserved to know what was going on.

But limiting access for reporters and starving them of information was apparently not enough. 

Last month the Pentagon rolled out strict new guidelines for the press corps which warned that “information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” and threatened to strip access from anyone who violated that stricture. On the October 15 deadline to sign their acknowledgement of the new guidelines, journalists for dozens of outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal instead turned in their press passes and left the building en masse.

“Signing that document would make us stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable,” Bowman noted.

But for Hegseth, that was the point — he wanted stenographers rather than watchdogs, and following the establishment of the new guidelines and the ensuing walkout, that’s exactly what he’s gotten. All the reporters who might consider themselves watchdogs have left the building. Even right-wing outlets Fox, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, The Washington Times, and the Washington Examiner drew a line and refused to sign the new guidelines to retain their access.

Those that did sign are, almost by definition, the type of willing administration lapdogs Hegseth wanted covering him from inside the building. They are, at times by their own admission, woefully incapable of doing investigative work that holds him to account — but they have the skills to promote his talking points and puff him up to their right-wing audiences. 

Hegseth and the MAGA right enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship. When his nomination appeared in jeopardy following allegations of misconduct that included sexual assault, workplace drunkenness, and financial mismanagement, Hegseth benefited from the furious support of MAGA influencers. Upon taking office, he then offered access to the likes of Pizzagate enthusiast Jack Posobiec and presidential daughter-in-law Lara Trump to burnish his image. 

A rundown of those who will now make up the Pentagon press corps — either rare holdovers willing to sign the guidelines or new outlets that announced their involvement after Parnell’s announcement — suggests that one hand will continue to wash the other. The “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” features a host of representatives from MAGA outlets, many of which publish deranged conspiracy theories, Trumpist hagiography, or extremist commentary. 

They include:

• Infowars, the internet home of Alex Jones, a pro-Trump radio host and conspiracy theorist who has accused the U.S. government of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks and a host of other mass shootings and terror strikes. The site, which faces liquidation to pay Jones’ $1.4 billion defamation judgement for claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax staged by crisis actors, promotes similarly deranged content. Over the past few years it ran headlines about the Pentagon’s purported role in the “COVID Attack Plan” and “Nanotech Mind Control of Society” before pivoting to pro-Hegseth content in the second Trump term.  
• The Gateway Pundit, website of the right-wing blogger Jim Hoft, whose credulous promotion of hoaxes earned him the description “dumbest man on the internet.” The Gateway Pundit became a clearinghouse for election denial and voter fraud conspiracy theories amid and following the 2020 vote (and a key news source for Trump in the leadup to the January 6 insurrection, which the site initially celebrated), as well as a font of Kremlin propaganda after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 
• Lindell TV, the pro-Trump outlet of pillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell, among the most vociferous members of the election denial community, who has lost multiple lawsuits over his various false claims about fraud in the 2020 vote. 
• One America News Network, a third-tier Fox competitor with an obsessive focus on pushing false claims about election fraud and a penchant for promoting particularly wild conspiracy theories, including airing content which matches the description of a 2020 documentary the federal government warned had been produced by Russian proxies. 
• The Federalist, a virulently anti-LGBTQ MAGA website which recently published a piece arguing that Democrats “need to be treated like the domestic terrorists they are.” Its editor-in-chief, Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway, has accused various news outlets of “perpetuating” a “seditious conspiracy,” while its CEO Sean Davis regularly accuses Democrats and Trump opponents of “treason.”
• The Epoch Times, an online publication closely linked to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which was founded in China and banned by its government. Epoch Times became a notorious pro-Trump publication following his 2016 election and a leading outlet for “Stop the Steal” content around his 2020 reelection defeat.
• Timcast, the outlet of MAGA influencer Tim Pool, who unwittingly received millions of dollars that originated with the Kremlin. It was part of what federal officials described as a scheme to boost videos “consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Government of Russia interests.”
• Human Events, an online outlet which employs Posobiec as its senior editor.
• Frontlines, the media outlet of Turning Points USA, a right-wing nonprofit organization with deep ties to the Republican Party and Trump administration.

Hegseth’s restocking of the Pentagon press room with shills and sycophants aligns with similar efforts underway at the White House, as well as an administration-wide war on journalism which includes defunding public media; suborning once-critical media owners; aiding sales of outlets to friendlier ownership; and filing lawsuits that punish news outlets for reporting that displeases the president.