Analysis
Behind closed doors
New pentagon policy stamps out Press freedom
I was initially alarmed on behalf of journalists when I heard about the new policy at the Pentagon.
The policy demanded journalists sign what amounted to a pledge that even unclassified information would first be cleared by the military before the press was able to release it. I have been keeping track of how this policy has been changing the face of defense reporting in the past few weeks. And already I have witnessed reporters change their positions, stories be postponed or edited, and transparency suffer. What does this imply of the news that we watch, what the people know, and of democracy?
The policy that made everything different
In mid-September 2025, Secretary Pete Hegseth of the recently rebranded Department of Ward made a policy that is mandatory: any credentialed journalist must sign a pledge that any information that the Department releases must be formally cleared before any release—even that which is not classified. Journalists who do not comply will be denied press credentials or access to all areas of the Pentagon.
In addition to that, other limitations include escorts for reporters in some areas previously not required and the inability to move freely in some parts of the building that were previously open as press corridors, as well as prohibiting access without following some conditions. This memo is approximately 17 pages long, which covers new credentialing and behavior requirements.
The most surprising thing to me is the broad sweep of it: not only of what reporters are allowed to publish, but of what they are able to see, ask, and notice.
Reporters shift their coverage
I had virtual conversations with several journalists who report on the Pentagon to understand how the policy has already brought about changes. They are not named here to protect their reporting, employment, and First Amendment rights of freedom of the press despite the new policy.
One reporter indicated they no longer would use anonymous sources within the Pentagon unless they are already cleared some steps with the public affairs offices, or they think there will be delays in their publication. Stories that used to be posted fast following press briefings are now in limbo as reporters wait to be approved.
Others responded that they changed headlines and deleted what could have been potentially controversial information that could be deemed as controlled unclassified information so that they could not push the limits of what the Pentagon would not accept or could even get access to.
Others too have started to restrict off-the-record conversations; when reporters used to have little informal walks down the corridors and picked up what they could overhear in a chat, now everything is curated, planned, and meditated.
The implication of these changes is chilling: it is not in every case that there is outright censorship, but that such effects are widespread enough that reporters are censoring themselves or withholding stories that they might otherwise have posted.
The implications of this on audience and public understanding
These changes have practical effects on the masses.
It delays reporting, meaning less robust and slower news.
When the information has to come through the gates, time is lost. It implies less immediacy, fewer whistleblower tales, and fewer revelations of what is going on in the Pentagon. This leaves the audience with what the Pentagon desires to be publicized, which is not necessarily what is needed in order to hold them accountable.
There’s less depth of investigation.
Articles that used to delve into how choices were being made within the defense machine now look at what was officially allowed. That holds back critical journalism. As an example, information concerning the internal policy difference of view or leakage that can be used to expose citizens to debate can be lost or diluted.
Trust is eroded.
When the audience finds out that the press must concur on the guidelines of reporting, there is loss of trust in journalists. Is that to say that what is being reported is filtered? Is the narrative being formed by the government? Those are tough questions that people will pose, and answers might never be transparent without being disclosed.
There’s a lack of transparency in what’s reported.
This policy creates a wall between the knowledge accessible to the people — particularly in a democracy — and the knowledge accessible to the government. When it requires reporting to be sanctioned prior to publication, then access is conditional. Not only is transparency no longer automatic, but it will be conditional based on adherence to official standards — which may change over time, and these changes are often secret.
How this stacks up globally
Let’s compare the way other democracies manage the access to the defense institutions; the difference is significant.
In the U.K. there are protocols on sensitive information and occasional seals on the name of national security, but no blanket oaths on unclassified information to be signed by journalists. The vibrant tradition of strong leaks, autonomous examination, and judicial appeal exists.
In France and Japan, the same rules are followed: unclassified information can be published without the previous consent, but with a responsibility to source and verify it. The competition in courts can be healthy sometimes in terms of matters of public interest.
Relatively, the U.S. policy seems stricter in formalizing pre-approval conditions, which puts pressure on the reporters who are willing to report on the defense matters on their conditions.
Legal and moral imperatives: What’s constitutional about this?
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but what are the new regulations doing in reference to the already constituted law?
Most organizations, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, noted that requiring access on the condition of signing an agreement not to publish some unclassified information constitutes a prior restraint, which is usually not well received in the constitutional law of the United States.
According to legal commentators I have consulted, in cases where reporters are under threat of having credentials suspended, it is not just a regulation but rather a punishment of future speech. That casts grave First Amendment concerns.
Also, the so-called Pentagon pledge is also under scrutiny not only on what is forbidden but also on the meaning of what is meant by controlled unclassified information. It is a legally gray category, which gives much discretion to the government officials.
The current impact of the policy on the news output
Such sources of news as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Reuters have released statements to criticize the policy and are considering how to either comply or go on the offensive.
There are delays or less detail in some of the stories that previously emerged out of Pentagon briefings—particularly those based on background interviews or unofficial sources. Indicatively, an exposed chat on military operations reported on one occasion led to embarrassment for the leadership at the Pentagon. Subsequently, sources mention that it became more limited in briefing content and informal gatherings.
The reporting tone has changed to become more cautious. Reporters I have been talking to said that they are staying off of anything that may go wrong with approval clauses, even at the cost of making the people less transparent.
What do I find here?
As a foreign correspondent, I have always considered the United States to be an international champion of freedom of speech — a country where journalism had the right to express its views and facts without fear of reprisal. But policies like this new Pentagon directive are the exact opposite of that reality and ideal. The very country that teaches the world lessons in transparency and accountability is itself imposing restrictions that the United States would criticize if implemented in any other country.
This is not an isolated incident. The designation of non-classified information as controlled unclassified information,
the prosecution of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, and the surveillance of journalists’ conversations and communications all demonstrate that the grip on knowledge and information is becoming increasingly tight. The trend is clear: investigative journalists who expose national security concerns fear consequences that will be imposed on them, and that fear is growing by the day.
This decline is both startling and instructive for countries like ours. When a country long considered the home of the First Amendment begins to clamp down on its own journalists, what message does it send to governments that already have little tolerance for dissent? America’s strength has always been in its freedom of press; if the same country now closes its doors in the name of control, it will undermine not only its journalism but also its moral high ground.
I believe in the fundamental principle of journalism that where there is darkness, there is light — especially when we report on the Pentagon. This new policy threatens to turn transparency into a license; journalists will now have to wait for government approval before releasing information that is actually classified.
This is not just a change in the administrative structure but a change in what gets to the public and who gets to decide. And that is the point that journalism’s watchdog role is most responsible for protection.
Ishraq Ahmed Hashmi is a freelance journalist and commentator who concentrates on accessibility, media ethics and social justice. His work discusses the way in which inclusive practices can transform journalism and open up the engagement of people. Follow him on LinkedIn at /in/Ishraq-Ahmed-Hashmi.
============================================================
Trump takes the American cultural wars to international level at U.N.
How the U.S. president’s speech played around the world
The United Nations General Assembly has long been the venue of idealism, solemn pledges of a brighter tomorrow, and a mandate of the nations of the globe to adhere to each other and act cooperatively.
On Tuesday, it turned into something different: the place where U.S. President Donald Trump brought America’s sour culture wars to an international stage.
His campaign style and grievance rhetoric gave international audiences and diplomats much to ponder.
To Americans, who were watching the speech, it was embarrassing. To the world, it was an eye-opener. Polarized politics in Washington may tint the way international relations are done, whether in terms of migration or global warming.
Immigration and climate as global battle line
Much of Trump’s speech was focused on two points: first, mass migration and what he called the “hoax of global warming.” He called green energy programs frauds that were killing the majority of our world, as countries were threatened that they would not pass without ditching renewable energy investments.
As he was concluding his speech, he moved to his second grievance: Trump asserted that immigration is very expensive. It is a fundamental threat to peace and prosperity across the globe, he said.
The language was familiar to his home he said: a depiction of migrants through a lens of national security, and climate action as a trap on the economy. However, when Trump gave these themes the U.N. treatment, it was the entire world needed to battle according to his commands.
A Rally of a Speech Like That
Trump’s speech was observed by many. It was at times lighthearted, sometimes antagonistic, featuring rips at the prior administration of President Biden — and a few accounts of malfunctioning teleprompters and escalators. He boasted about “ending unendable wars” within eight months in Middle East, Southeast Asia and African since beginning his second term in office.
“I had completed seven intolerable wars in eight months. This is not done by an American president so far, they were unendable. You’re never going to get them solved. Some were going for 31 years…”
But those claims were quickly corrected by international analysts and fact-checkers. Not all of these disputes are resolved, and some were not stopped but suspended. However, the flourish underlined the fact that Trump loves credit and said that everyone believes that he deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Global perspective: exporting America's culture wars
For foreign diplomats, analysts, and pundits, the most memorable aspect of the speech was not Trump’s self-praise but that the United States' domestic matters were laid at the feet of other nations.
Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, told the Christian Science Monitor that the appearance of Trump demonstrated the pronounced difference between his second term and the presidency of Biden, one-term: “What we heard was … American president quoting in the U.N. two areas of issues in the center of American political polarization in a way never heard before.”
Such framing — making climate action seem a scam and migration seem an existential threat — compelled the 193 member states to view global challenges in the perspectives of partisanship of the U.S.
The Christian Science Monitor attended to higher dynamics.
“The end of multilateralism that Donald Trump drew was not as near to the end of multilateralism as the end of multilateralism into which United States was the core.”
That is, the vision of Trump is not the withdrawal, but the demand of cooperation, though only modelling the internal culture wars of America.
Since Gaza to Ukraine selective moral outrage Gaza to Ukraine
The only applause accorded to Trump was when he urged Hamas to “set the hostages free now!” — a phrase that resonated with the current war in Gaza. But he mentioned only Hamas in regards to the war in Gaza, leaving Israel, recently accused of genocide by the United Nations Human Rights Council, unmentioned.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin was in the verbal line of fire regarding the war that was still being waged in Ukraine.
He threatened to impose sanctions on Russia, but only in case European countries cease to buy its energy: Europe, he said, “is fueling the Russian military machine through energy. As it turned out, in a later post about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump would claim that, with the help of Europe, “Ukraine could free occupied lands.”
Such positions, stern as they were, served to emphasize the selectivity of the Trump outrage customer service to the enemies of America but transactional paeanism of friends.
Questioning the U.N.’s value
All through the speech, Trump doubted the usefulness of the U.N. itself, describing the U.N. as a breeder of global issues rather than a tribunal of solutions. He denounced the migration policies of the multinational organization, and proposed that bilateral deals and great-power politics were more practical.
The executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, Trita Parsi, cautioned that such an attitude is in line with his overall mistrust of international institutions:
“His withdrawal from multilateral agreements … showcased an unusual disdain for international institutions and cooperation.”
On social media, Parsi added:
“It is reasonable to expect that once Trump comes in, he will go after the ICC and the ICJ in ways that profoundly damages the multilateral system.”
This cynicism caused larger doubts to many onlookers: whether the U.N. is marginalized, who shall set the world standards and conflict management? And how will smaller countries compete in a world where the domestic struggles of America are exported to the international arenas?
Style or substance?
Not all people believed that what was expressed by Trump at U.N. was a true pivot. The large apparent likenesses are elsewhere rejected by Behnam Ben Taleblu as providing no more than a change of style rather than a change of substance on part of world leaders (The Guardian). Here his critic finds his reflection: did the speech of Trump represent a reorientation of the American international policy or a rejoinder at theatrical antics aimed at exporting the American oratory to other countries?
To a large number of capitals, the response is not as important as the outcome. Although considered theater, the speech can affect the immigration, climate and security discussions in other countries, empowering local extremists and weakening weak coalitions.
Perceptions as a correspondent
I heard most of what Trump covered on that specific day as an international journalist; however, it was the setting that caught me off guard. And it was surreal to watch the representatives of the world not meet the airing of Americans fighting each other at home with a call for mutual interests.
There were those who laughed at his jokes, and there were those who shook their heads. Diplomats, despite any off-the-record bemoaning of American partisanship, were sucked into it. To people who admire the boldness of Trump, it was another show of American strength. To others, it was an indication that Washington takes the polarization of America to the global political arena.
While the U.S. is embarrassed, it matters globally
The performance of Trump in the U.N. was embarrassing to many Americans.
According to U.N. program director Richard Gowan at the International Crisis Group, Trump makes himself blunt.
“I look forward to Trump’s return to U.N.G.A.,” he tweeted, adding a quote from his linked piece in Foreign Policy. “Trump (probably) won’t leave the international body — he will just continue to make its life difficult.”
Gowan predicted Trump’s speech near-perfectly to Reuters nearly a week earlier.
“He enjoys the General Assembly. He enjoys the attention of other leaders,” he said. “My suspicion is he is going to be using his appearance to boast about his many achievements and perhaps once again, make the case he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”
As a foreign correspondent, I was touched by the discrepancy that Americans shuddered at the image of domestic struggles of their own on the global television screen, and that a decent proportion of foreigners were left virtually speechless, even amused. This dichotomy can point out the fact that initially, Trump was not just exporting the U.S. culture wars but globalizing a feeling of discomfort that would follow.
Trump’s speech showed that U.S. culture wars do not stop at the national level anymore. Once he stated that climate policy is a hoax and migration is a global existential threat, it was used in the global discourse. Countries are under pressure to pick sides — either follow the framing of Trump, or stand against it.
There are risks in exporting polarization:
- Diplomatic tensions make it difficult to cooperate regionally.
- Political contagion causes political leaders in other countries to employ the same rhetoric to restore political support back at home.
- Global issues such as climate change and migration are turned into partisan issues.
The speech at the U.N., in a nutshell, re-emphasized the argument from Trump that the U.S. is dominating the world with its goods, policies, and security, declaring that now it is exporting its own culture wars too.
Ishraq Ahmed Hashmi is a freelance journalist and commentator who concentrates on accessibility, media ethics and social justice. His work discusses the way in which inclusive practices can transform journalism and open up the engagement of people. Follow him on LinkedIn at /in/Ishraq-Ahmed-Hashmi.
======================================================
OPINION
Inclusive journalism as style
Accessibility is not an afterthought
Journalism boasts of telling the truth and representing the general will of the public.
Who is the public when our stories cannot be seen or listened to by everyone?
Media accessibility has been historically viewed as a add-on feature: alt text or captions are afterthoughts, or captions are added in case of a lawsuit situation. Plain language versions are an alternative, not the standard.
The weak point of this approach is that accessibility is not a compliance requirement in many countries. In the U.S., accessibility is enforced by the Americans with Disability Act, but one must sue to enforce that accessibility. Even more stringent online requirements exist in the European Union, but again, it’s enforced by lawsuit.
This translates into whose voices, opinions, and rights we find within our common information spaces.
In this era when newsrooms are vying for diminishing attention and credibility, accessibility is not just an ethical requirement but a style revolution. Accessibility alters the voice, beats, and reach of journalism itself. Accessibility is a component of a soul, if the style of a story is a communicator of soul.
Exposure grows viewership
Accessibility is often thought of as added burden, or something only used by a disabled people — who make up more than a quarter of the population in the U.S. and a approximately one in six people worldwide. Yet the situation is quite the opposite: access increases the audience. Captions are not exclusive to Deaf viewers; they improve the experiences of people in a boisterous cafe, English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and scrollers.
Plain language is not only useful to people with intellectual disabilities but also to those who are drowned in jargon.
Transcribed podcasts can be searched on Google, increasing the reach of news.
The Associated Press Stylebook did not simply rise to the top as style; it provides journalists a common language and standard. A style guide with an accessibility focus like this the EAPM Style and Accessibility Guide can do the same.
Accessibility is not merely an accommodation
The shape of the guide dictates the way journalists write: should we use email or e-mail, climate change or global warming, and disabled people or people with disabilities? These are not insignificant decisions that influence perception and build debate.
However, very little in the way of the mainstream newsroom style manual has taken accessibility as part of style. Rather, it is including accessibility as left to the technical team or a captioning service.
Suppose accessibility were made a style concern from the start. It would involve describing images as carefully as headlines, selecting color patterns when displaying data as carefully as we select fonts, or placing quotations in sources with consideration to neurodiverse readers as we do to grammar rules.
Inclusion is no longer optional when it becomes style. It is visible on the page.
The digital divide in journalism
The spread of digital news storytelling has increased inequality in access. Long-form interactive stories, data visualizations, podcasts, and social videos do not necessitate every individual using computer-generated audio devices, subtitles, or texts. Although certain outlets have accessibility layers, the experience is seldom similar.
Consider the case of the charts in CoVid-19 reporting. Many charts had elaborate color schemes, small fonts, and missing alt text. The greatest public health story of our time was lost to millions of low-vision or blind readers.
Another example, election coverage, features live streams frequently being uploaded without captions, keeping Deaf individuals out of the democratic process. It’s not technical slips but style failures.
Can it be different? Yes.
ProPublica has published searchable transcripts alongside podcasts. The BBC that has been making investments into transcription and audio description throughout its video content. Accessibility just requires choice and newsroom culture.
Between compliance and creativity
Accessibility is frequently narrowed to checklists: WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, captioning quotas, and alt text requirements. Although essential, this compliance culture has a tendency to restrain creativity. Suppose, however, that journalists view accessibility as an inventive frontier?
As an example, documentaries can be audio-described as a new art form, using sound effects and voice-over to create pictures in the imaginations of the blind listeners. Transcripts are embraced in podcasts; the transcripts allow a multimedia layer, connecting sources and annotations. In both instances, access is not an burden but an aid to a richer style.
To accessibility-first news
Change cannot be done by individuals only. Newsroom culture must change.
Reporters and editors need to be taught to regard accessibility as inherent in their profession, rather than post hoc. A budget must include captioning and transcription, and not extra.
Guides to style must incorporate accessibility guidelines as well as grammar and punctuation.
It can be done. It is being done. Here it is.
Ishraq Ahmed Hashmi is a freelance journalist and commentator who concentrates on accessibility, media ethics and social justice. His work discusses the way in which inclusive practices can transform journalism and open up the engagement of people. Follow him on LinkedIn at /in/Ishraq-Ahmed-Hashmi.
======================================================
News
Journalism moves unevenly to adopt accessibility practices
News sites continue to overlook accessibility, continuing to rank among the worst offenders of digital access
and EAPM staff
As journalism moves ever more online, digital accessibility lags behind for news outlets.
One reason for the persistent lack of accessibility in newsrooms is the continued invisibility of people with disabilities in public places and public discourse,
said Becca Monteleone, PhD, Associate Professor and Disability Studies Program Coordinator at the University of Toledo.
The World Health Organization reports more than 1.3 billion people around the world live with some kind of disability. That’s about a quarter of the population the news is potentially missing.
There seems to be a perception that disabled people are not consumers of news or members of the public — and so accessibility is often forgotten or treated as an afterthought,
Monteleone said. Disabled people have the same right to access information as the non-disabled public, and yet are consistently denied that right.
A digital division in the digital age
In 2025, WebAIM Million, an annual survey of website accessibility, reported that news sites again ranked among the worst for accessibility with an average of 59.8 errors per page. It was a slight improvement from 2024, when the survey found 69.5 errors per page., but still a noticeable flaw.
Out of all problems news sites were evaluated for, low contrast and missing alt text remained the top two problems found. (https://webaim.org/projects/million/2024).
Large news outlets including BBC, Al Jazeera, and The New York Times have made accessibility commitments, and innovations have been tested by outlets such as Newslaundry in India. Despite that, there is a large range of inconsistency in their application across platforms and geographies.
Newsrooms are looking first at tight budgets when considering what to add, including accessibility measures.
News outlets are hanging by a thread,
said Stacy Kess, founder and chief of editor of Equal Access Public Media (EAPM), an organization dedicated to making journalism more accessible. There’s no funding behind many of them. To have a person dedicated to making sure everything is accessible is not something most news outlets can or want to dedicate their resources.
EAPM publishes The Word.
However, accessibility experts say that many accessibility practices are inexpensive or even free. Alt text, image descriptions and video description, compatibility with screen readers, and contrast-compliant designs are a matter of awareness.
It starts with who is in the newsroom and if those people are listened to, said Johny Cassidy, BBC Digital Specialy Projects Producer and accessibility expert.
Once we employ diversity of thought in our newsrooms, we have to listen. We have to lean into what that diversity is actually telling us and act accordingly,
Cassidy said. If we have Deaf or blind colleagues, find out what accessible content looks like for them.
In the U.S., no organization specifically tracks disability in journalism, despite an estimated 28.7 percent of the adult population identifying as disabled. In Jan. 2025, EAPM released a white paper with analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate how many journalists are disabled. The result was staggering: only 7.8 percent of working journalists in the U.S. have a disability.
In the U.K., on the other hand, the National Council for the Training of Journalists estimates about 22 percent of journalists identify as disabled — much closer to both the U.K. and world population estimate of about 1 in 4 adults identifying as disabled.
People with disabilities are not just consumers of news, but producers of news,
Monteleone said. Inclusion and accessibility strategies cannot be confined to the delivery of news products. We need to also consider how disability is being written about in journalism, pathways for disabled journalists to enter and stay in the field, and supporting disabled sources. Historically, coverage of disability in the news media has been poor and rooted in ableist stereotypes—the only way to address that is to invite in disabled perspectives at all levels.
The educational gap
Accessibility is rarely a part of journalistic education or the editorial process. Journalists learn to package a narrative, confirm a fact, or maximize a headline but not to write alt text, describe images, or caption videos.
When I speak at conferences, I can see the
Kess said. aha-moment
for a lot of people,I can see that I am introducing new information when I talk about making newsrooms more accessible to journalists with disabilities or news content more accessible to news audiences with disabilities. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Some universities now offer inclusive design courses or courses on disability in the media — not just to teach compliance but to create empathy and to help journalists understand their audience at every level of ability. But progress remains uneven.
We teach journalists how to report facts, how to interview, how to do write a news article, and so on, but we don’t teach them about accessibility,
Kess said. And with most journalism online, we don’t teach them about WCAG. We don’t teach them HTML mark-up that fits WCAG guidelines. We don’t teach them about what screen reader software can and cannot read. We don’t teach them any of that.
Even if journalism schools taught accessibility and newsrooms hired enough disabled reporters to bring those voices to the table, some problems remain.
The most influential medium of news in most of the world — television news — is still mostly unreachable to deaf and hard of hearing people. Sign language interpretation is an exception and not a norm, even in public service broadcasters.
There simply aren’t enough sign language interpreters anywhere,
Kess said. The shortage is global — and that leaves television news literally silent for millions.
In the U.S., for up to 1 million people whose primary language is American Sign language, there are only 10,000 certified ASL interpreters. That’s 1 interpreter for every 100 people who sign ASL.
Cassidy underlined this point with urgency.
If journalism isn’t serving everyone, then it’s failed in its duty,
Cassidy said. Ensure tools and platforms as well as policies and processes are actually removing barriers which allow all of us to thrive.
The shifting tide
The trend toward accessibility is slowly shifting. Accessibility workshops, newsroom audits, and advocacy networks are gaining ground. International bodies like the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), EAPM, and the European Broadcasting Union have initiated programs to promote accessible journalism practices.
Cassidy also noted the looming challenge and opportunity of technology.
One of the biggest developments in journalism will undoubtedly be AI,
Cassidy said. For it to benefit everyone though, we need to ensure any and all platforms using AI technology aren’t exacerbating and compounding existing biases. We need to make sure all user interfaces work seamlessly and securely with assistive technology. Every single part of the AI and wider newsroom journey needs to be as friction-less as possible.
Many news organizations are leaning into accessibility and creating access solutions for audiences who don’t access content in what might be considered the traditional way,
Cassidy said.
The BBC has experimented with new tools and new ideas, including BBC Ability, a staff-led network by disabled employees for a disabled audience with accessibility in mind. This includes Able Magazine.
There’s been a definite growth in the awareness of the opportunities creating accessible content can bring, and this is only going to increase as we keep pushing for greater diversity across our newsrooms,
he said. Too many newsrooms have historically fished from a narrow pool which means those on the margins haven’t been catered for.
Ishraq Ahmed Hashmi is a freelance journalist and commentator who concentrates on accessibility, media ethics and social justice. His work discusses the way in which inclusive practices can transform journalism and open up the engagement of people. Follow him on LinkedIn at /in/Ishraq-Ahmed-Hashmi.
){kind=link}
0 Comments