Gen. Jack Keane reacts to Pentagon’s new press access policy

Fox News senior strategic analyst and retired Gen. Jack Keane expressed his reaction to the Trump administration’s new press access policy for the Pentagon during an appearance on “Special Report” on Tuesday.

“It doesn’t seem like the whole story is being told to our audience here,” Keane told Fox News’ Bret Baier. “What they’re really doing is they want to spoon-feed information to journalists and that will be their story. That’s not journalism. Journalism is going and finding the story and getting all the facts to back it up.”

“No one is going to go in and knock on the door of a senior civilian policy leader in the Pentagon or a four-star general. I never did anything like that, but I had journalists in the Army who were after something was going on or a story, and those are legitimate,” he continued. “In fact, what frustrates us at times is that we haven’t come before you, and something bad happens and we get our act together — and sometimes — ‘Let’s wait a few days before we talk about it,’ and you’re in on it. And that’s journalism.”

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Keane said he wanted his generals to be trained to interact with the press so they would “welcome” journalists and not be afraid of them.

“See the media as your conduit to the American people, and that’s how I’ve always viewed it and believed in supporting it,” Keane said. “The times when the stories were made did scare me a bit, yes – but that was usually because we had done something that wasn’t as good as we should have done.”

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Keane said he told his generals to view Pentagon reporters “as conduits to the American people.” (STAFF/AFP via Getty Images)

The Pentagon, under Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, is implementing a new policy that requires journalists to agree to certain conditions in order to be granted access. Many news organizations oppose the policy.

ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FOX News Media and NBC said: “Today, we join nearly every other news organization in refusing to accept the Pentagon’s new requirements that restrict the ability of journalists to keep the country and the world informed on important national security issues. This policy is unprecedented and threatens fundamental journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military, as each of our organizations have done for decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.” We will.” News said in a joint statement.

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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth doubled down on the Pentagon’s new press access policy at a meeting at the White House. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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