The press faces the Pentagon's “black box” on the war with Iran

Last week's Pentagon press conference hosted by defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine gave at least appearances of transparency.

However, military leaders were treated in advance by media favoring Trump, which took place in the front row in the briefing room.

More broadly, while Hegseth claimed that the U.S. was "accelerating" attacks in Iran, Pentagon journalists say they are not receiving answers to key questions regarding ongoing military operations. "A lot of beatings, little circumstantial data," said 1 reporter.

"The deficiency of information made war a kind of black box," another origin said.

Armed forces always keep a secret during armed conflicts, and journalists always collect information from different sources, which in 2026 means searching commercial satellite images and analyzing eyewitness videos to better realize the battlefield.

"But in average times of war," said 1 of the Pentagon reporters, "once or twice a day we would receive briefings detailing the improvement of the war."

Instead, "today they simply print random tweets or videos with details", not giving journalists the chance to continue," another said.

Several reporters drew attention to a recording published on Tuesday evening by Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the Central Command of the United States. Cooper shared any valuable details – "We have already attacked almost 2,000 targets with more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition," he said.

But the times of news meetings with the military have passed, who could research the details – and answer additional questions. "Pentagon has not yet let them inform us," said 1 reporter.

Or possibly the White home is simply a hot spot. Pentagon reporters frequently contact military representatives by telephone and email. However, “actually everything goes to the White House”, including operational issues, another reporter said. As a result, “most of the information we collect comes from the leaks and Signal messages, outside of authoritative documents”.

Two different briefings in one

On Wednesday, Hegseth raised a provocative, though not amazing to him, allegation: that the press overly recounts the deaths of the soldiers so that "the president looks bad".

Hegseth has a long past of utilizing the media as a contrast, even erstwhile he himself was a media typical and ran programs in Fox News.

Caine, in turn, began his speech with the expression "deep sadness and gratitude" for the death of the victims in Kuwait. "There were almost 2 briefings," 1 led by Hegseth, and the another by Caine, later said John Berman of CNN.

Dan Lamothe, a military reporter in the "Washington Post", tweeted the importance of reporting military casualties, including on the front page: "The press "stressed the victims of American soldiers and their families and shortcomings that sometimes allowed specified deaths," Lamothe wrote. “We will continue. It is besides crucial to stop.”

Tensions in the press corps return

Two Pentagon briefings since the beginning of the war, Monday and Wednesday, besides sparked disputes about who should be present in this room.

Currently, most military reporters work outside the 5 walls of the Pentagon, although any have been allowed inside for a Wednesday conference, including a CNN reporter.

On Monday, Hegseth answered only questions asked by selected media and criticized NBC station erstwhile a reporter from this station tried to ask him a question.

He seemingly only contacted 1 conventional station on Wednesday, the BBC. Tom Bateman, a BBC correspondent, asked to update information on "reporting a strike at a girls' school in confederate Iran on Saturday", and Hegseth briefly replied, "We are investigating".

Many questions asked by other, more opinionative media were of weight and value.

Nevertheless, Hegseth's actions, involving Trump-friendly media, met with ridicule in any circles, especially as press access to the Pentagon was severely restricted, even for Hegseth's favorites.

Some reporters say that the deeper problem is what we lose erstwhile journalists mostly stay distant from society.

"Most journalists are not allowed into the Pentagon itself, where these decisions are made," Nancy Youssef of The Atlantic said on Wednesday during a live broadcast panel. "In a war where the consequences are so serious and people have so much difficulty knowing it, I believe that the deficiency of information not only makes it hard for us to do our job, but besides makes it hard for the American public to realize what is happening."

Briefing gap

Lamothe noted on channel X that until the outbreak of the war with Iran, the Pentagon had not held any press conference since 2 December last year.

However, there was quite a few unilateral communication through regular videos online and social media entries published by the Pentagon press office.

Chris Meagher, Pentagon's chief spokesperson in the second half of Joe Biden's term, told CNN that his office routinely informed the press corps twice a week from the platform and erstwhile a week off the camera.

"I am not saying that everything has always been fine – there have been situations erstwhile definitely not – but the public relations squad and the secretary's office have always tried in good religion to inform the public about our actions," said Meagher. "It seems that neither this secretary nor his politicians show specified commitment".

Meagher said the military's actions should be transparent, while taking into account national safety issues.

"Almost a trillion dollars from taxpayers' money is coming into the department," he said, "and the decisions made by the secretary are virtually decisions about life and death in terms of putting American soldiers in danger – society deserves to know what his army is doing, especially during the war."