Jack Keane, a retired general and the former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army, took Pete Hegseth’s new press policy for the Pentagon to task during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News.
The national security analyst spoke out against the new restrictions — which have been widely rejected by major news outlets, including Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS — claiming on “Special Report” that this was simply a way “to spoon-feed information to the journalists” in order to control stories.
“That’s not journalism. Journalism is going out and finding the story and getting all the facts that support it,” Keane said. “And no one’s going to walk in and bang on a door of a four-star general or senior civilian policy leader in the Pentagon. I never had that, but I did have journalists chasing a story of something that was going on in the Army. And those things were legitimate.”
He continued: “And, if anything, what would frustrate us in times is, we didn’t beat you to it. And something bad is happening and we’re getting our act together to do it. And, sometimes, well, let’s wait a couple days before we talk about that, and you guys are on it — and that’s journalism!”
Later on, Keane revealed the advice he used to give new generals, which was to view the media as a “conduit to the American people.”
“There were times when stories were done that made me flinch a little bit, yeah,” he added, “but that’s usually because we had done something that wasn’t as good as we should’ve done it.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier appeared to co-sign Keane’s sentiments, defending the presence of journalists at the Pentagon is often an asset to the government.
“We’re all standing in solidarity, well almost all of us,” Baier noted, seemingly referencing One America News Network’s agreement to the new rules. “We hope that changes. We’ll see where this policy goes.”
Watch Keane’s full Fox News appearance above.
