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Brian Stelter's 10/15/25 Reliable Sources column - " 'Journalism is not a crime'"
(This column, a daily roundup of journalism-related news from CNN's Brian Stelter, author of several books including two digging into the sleaze that is Fox "News," is essential morning reading for me. I highly recommend it.)
'Journalism is not a crime'
As Pentagon beat reporters prepared to hand in their press passes yesterday, some noticed a new poster on the wall leading to the "Correspondents' Corridor." The sign said "journalism is not a crime."
It was a silent protest of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's new policy that criminalizes routine reporting. By this morning, the poster was gone. But there is still, perhaps ironically, an old plaque in the hallway that promotes the Pentagon’s principles for the "free flow of information."
Press advocates say Hegseth is undermining those principles by pushing reporters out of the Pentagon and trying to stop them from talking with sources.
But Hegseth ultimately controls access to the complex, so journalists are giving up their credentials en masse, in one of the most striking examples of news media solidarity we've seen this year.
As Pentagon beat reporters prepared to hand in their press passes yesterday, some noticed a new poster on the wall leading to the "Correspondents' Corridor." The sign said "journalism is not a crime."
It was a silent protest of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's new policy that criminalizes routine reporting. By this morning, the poster was gone. But there is still, perhaps ironically, an old plaque in the hallway that promotes the Pentagon’s principles for the "free flow of information."
Press advocates say Hegseth is undermining those principles by pushing reporters out of the Pentagon and trying to stop them from talking with sources.
But Hegseth ultimately controls access to the complex, so journalists are giving up their credentials en masse, in one of the most striking examples of news media solidarity we've seen this year.
(Read more: https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/17605372933834a804192bce6/raw?utm_source=cnn_Reliable+Sources+%E2%80%93+Oct+15%2C+2025&utm_medium=email&bt_ee=8gPFb3ty8Q9GIcHIqzraZO1jGL9VShwD%2BjYxQujissBeRc%2BA8G4elbPeGjdjY7LC&bt_ts=1760537293385)