For the first time in more than 60 years, CBS News will end the week without a workspace at the Pentagon yet decrease — along with nearly every major news organization — to sign on to new journalistic requirements that reporters’ associations say could violate their First Amendment rights.
During D-Day, CBS News radio correspondent Joseph F. McCaffrey reported live from the Pentagon on the strategy and background of General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
McCaffrey reported on June 6, 1944 that “most of the planning, work, and split timing was done in this building.” “Although only a select few knew when that day would come, the atmosphere here at the Pentagon had been tense for several weeks.” Listen to the audio here:
CBS News has had radio reporters in the building since the 1940s and a television network kiosk or small office in a designated media area since the 1970s. For the past two decades, as networks have been able to broadcast live from the building, lights flash “on air” when important news breaks, and journalists relay information to the public directly from the Pentagon.
And for most of that time, David Martin, CBS News’ chief national security correspondent, was breaking the news and breaking every story. The Pentagon gave him his first press badge in 1983, and his producer, Mary Walsh, 10 years later. Since then, the duo has not only covered every military conflict, but also told stories about military service members and their lives.
“I am proud of the work David Martin and I have done, telling stories of bravery on the battlefield and courage and resilience at Walter Reed,” Walsh wrote in an email before handing over her press credentials at the Pentagon this week. “I am inspired and humbled by the tenacity of these men and women and their willingness to sacrifice everything for our country.”
Many of those stories arose from relationships built because of CBS News’ continued presence within the Pentagon.
“Walking the halls of the Pentagon has been my Defense Department for 40 years. I don’t know how to cover a story except by being there,” Martin wrote in an email. “I think 90% of the stories I published were the result of me being in the hallways and visiting officials in their offices.”
“Not all officials were happy to see me, but dealing with them face to face, day after day, developed a level of trust on both sides. At times, relations became tense but never acrimonious,” Martin wrote. “Even when [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] “Colin Powell was yelling at me to get out of his way, and I knew I could come back and talk to him the next day.”
Martin’s first day on the job as a CBS News correspondent at the Pentagon was April 18, 1983, the day a previously unknown terrorist group called Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
“No one knew it at the time, but it was the beginning of the era of terrorism,” Martin said.
“The next 40 years included the invasion of Grenada, Panama, the First Gulf War, the air war against Serbia, 9/11, the invasion first of Afghanistan and then Iraq, the bin Laden raid, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan — not to mention all the cultural issues, like women in combat. I can’t imagine covering any of these stories without constructive permission,” Martin wrote.
Bob Schieffer, “Face the Nation” director from 1991 to 2015, spent some of his early years at CBS News wearing a Pentagon pass.
“I came to work at CBS in 1969, and shortly after that, they sent me to the Pentagon because I was a rookie,” Schiffer said in a phone interview.
Schaefer stayed there for six years and “loved it.”
“I’ll tell you what I loved about it, it was like covering a small town in the middle of a big city,” Schaefer said. “You could get information, and you know, most of the time, it was information that not only helped you, but helped the audience understand.”
“They spend a lot of money at the Pentagon and rightly so, but I think people have a right to know that, not just have one PR person who’s going to issue a press release.”
Charlie D’Agata is currently CBS News’ chief national security correspondent covering the Pentagon and has more than two decades of experience covering the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as US military intervention in war zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria.
But it’s not just reporters on camera who give up their passes.
CBS News Radio correspondent Cammy McCormick has covered national security at CBS for more than two decades. Teams of producers, camera operators, sound technicians and engineers, who play a critical role in bringing the Army’s stories to Americans across the country, will also hand in their passes.
The Pentagon says the goal of its new policy is to stop press leaks and exercise control over military-related stories published by CBS News and other media organizations. She sent reporters a memo in September Assignment They sign an agreement admitting that they will need official authorization to publish classified or non-confidential controlled information.
The ministry said in the memo that “information must be approved before it is released to the public… even if it is not confidential.” News organizations were given a deadline of 5pm last Tuesday to return the signed agreement. The vast majority refused to do so, although at least one media outlet, the far-right One America News Network, agreed to the new restrictions.
Pentagon journalists may have surrendered their credentials to CBS News this week, but losing access to the building won’t stop them from reporting on what’s happening regarding the Secretary of Defense. Pete Hegseth He promised to be “the most transparent administration ever.”