The US Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing US-Israeli military conflict with Iran after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff allegedly deemed photos published of him “unflattering”.
The report comes from two anonymous sources familiar with the Defense Department’s decision, who spoke to The Washington Post.
The briefing on March 2 was Hegseth’s first in the Pentagon since June of last year, and it was held just days after Israel and US’s joint strike on Iran on February 28.
Several outlets had photographers in attendance at the briefing, including Associated Press, Reuters and Getty Images, which have broad reach due to being licensed by publications globally.
After these publications published photos of Hegseth at the March 2 briefing, the two sources said members of his staff were unhappy with the way he looked, leading the photographers to be shut out from two subsequent briefings held on March 4th and 10th.
The Pentagon, which has one of the world’s largest office buildings, released a statement saying the decision to restrict photographers was due to limited space in the briefing room.
“In order to use space in the Pentagon Briefing Room effectively, we are allowing one representative per news outlet if uncredentialed, excluding pool,” said the statement, attributed to Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson.
“Photographs from the briefings are immediately released online for the public and press to use. If that hurts the business model for certain news outlets, then they should consider applying for a Pentagon press credential.”
The White House has also defended the Pentagon’s decision, claiming The Washington Post did not include their full comments on the matter.
The Washington Post reported that White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly declined to comment on the matter, after the publication reached out.
Meanwhile, Kelly posted to X, arguing this claim with screenshots of her email reply to The Washington Post’s request for comment, which read: “Didn’t the Washington Post just fire all of its White House photographers?”
The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) has responded to the Defense Department’s decision, calling on the Pentagon to reinstate banned photographers.
“Excluding photographers from Pentagon briefings because officials did not like how published images portrayed them shows an astonishingly poor sense of priorities in the midst of a war and is, for a public servant, not a good look,” NPPA President Alex Garcia said.
“A free press cannot function if government officials decide that only favourable images of public officials may be created or distributed.”
“The public has the right to an independent visual record of what its government is doing, not a carefully curated collection of images approved by those in power. We urge news organizations to reject the use of government handout photos of the briefings.”
The NPPA is urging news organisations to refuse to publish government-issued photographs for events where news photographers were shut out for content-based reasons.