Fox News analyst Jack Keane on new Pentagon press policy: “They want to spoon feed information to the journalists, and that will be their story. That’s not journalism.”

BRET BAIER (ANCHOR): There are these new stipulations, new rules, that have been put out, and we in the media along with, all the networks and also newspapers had a media statement to respond. It was due today, and here it is.

“Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.”

That’s ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media, and NBC News signing that. Here is the secretary of war at the cabinet meeting, in his interpretation of what all this means.

PETE HEGSETH: You have to wear a badge that identifies that you’re press or you can’t just roam anywhere you want. It used to be, mister president, the press could go anywhere pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon, the most, classified area in the world. Or also that, if they sign on to the credentialing, they’re not gonna try to get soldiers to break the law by giving them classified information. So it’s common sense stuff.

BAIER: Kind of simplified it there than what’s on the paper. I covered the Pentagon for six-and-a-half years. I covered the White House for four years. I covered the Pentagon when you were there.

…

And, we knew not to — you don’t walk into the tank, and the classified areas were off limits, obviously, we were always trying to get the story from different elements, and there was a freedom, but everybody had badges with them. At the at the White House, I never walked into the Oval Office or the Situation Room. These are stipulations that essentially are changing the dynamic about how to get dynamic about how to get information and how they disseminate information.

KEANE: Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t seem like the whole story is being told to our viewers here. What they’re really doing, they want to spoon feed information to the journalists, and that will be their story. That’s not journalism. Journalism is going out and finding the story and getting all the facts to support it. And that no one’s gonna walk in and bang on a door of a four star general or 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. And if anything, what would frustrate us in times is we didn’t beat you to it. And we — something bad is happening, and we’re getting our act together, to do it. And sometimes, you know, well, let’s wait a couple of days before we talk about that, and you guys are on it.

And that’s journalism.

BAIER: And we know the stipulations about classified information. And if there are leaks or there are situations, there are investigations many times that lead to that. But in the day to day, for military families, for military, us being in the Pentagon is usually an asset.

KEANE: Yeah. I have never ever seen it. I mean, when I was a four star general, I insisted that all our new brigadier generals get a class at a a few days on what the role of the media is in an American democracy. These are often new generals. And then I would — I wanted them to practice and get interviews and how to deal with the realities of this because they have they have all these incredible war fighting skill sets, but dealing with the media isn’t one of them.

And so the education of them was very important to me, so they would welcome and don’t see the media as as something to be intimidated by. See the media as your conduit to the American people. And that’s how I always saw it and believed in supporting it. Did there — were there times when stories were done that make me flinch a little bit? Yeah.

But that’s usually because we had done something wasn’t as good as we should have done it.

BAIER: Well, we’re all standing in solidarity, almost all of us, and, we hope that changes. We’ll see where this policy goes. General, as always, thank you.

KEANE: Yeah. Great talking to you, Bret.