journalist

WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Friday to block the Trump administration from enforcing a policy limiting news reporters’ access to the Pentagon, agreeing with The New York Times that key portions of the new rules are unlawful.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington sided with the newspaper and ruled that the Pentagon policy illegally restricts the press credentials of reporters who walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules.

The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.

The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from the Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.

Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the policy “fails to provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the denial, suspension, or revocation” of Pentagon press credentials. He ruled that it violates the First and Fifth amendment rights to free speech and due process.

“In sum, the Policy on its face makes any newsgathering and reporting not blessed by the Department a potential basis for the denial, suspension, or revocation of a journalist’s (credential),” he wrote. “It provides no way for journalists to know how they may do their jobs without losing their credentials.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

It has argued that the policy imposes “common sense” rules that protect the military from the disclosure of national security information.

“The goal of that process is to prevent those who pose a security risk from having broad access to American military headquarters,” government attorneys wrote.

Times attorneys claim the policy is designed to silence unfavorable press coverage of President Trump’s administration.

“The First Amendment flatly prohibits the government from granting itself the unbridled power to restrict speech because the mere existence of such arbitrary authority can lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

Scott MacFarlane, a high-profile hire for CBS News five years ago, announced Monday he is leaving the network.

MacFarlane told colleagues in an email that the departure is his decision.

“I will always value the opportunity I had to work alongside the talented and committed professionals here,” MacFarlane said. “I’m proud to have had the words ‘CBS correspondent’ next to my name and always will be.”

MacFarlane added that he looks forward to “some independence and finding new spaces to share my work in line with my personal goals.”

MacFarlane is the first significant name to depart CBS News since parent company Paramount won its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery on Feb. 27. CBS News is likely to be combined with Warner Bros. Discovery‘s CNN if the deal gets regulatory approval.

Journalists at CBS News have also been concerned over the moves by Bari Weiss, the contrarian opinion writer and founder of the digital news site the Free Press who was brought in as editor in chief of the division. Weiss was recruited by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison with a mandate to move CBS News to the political center.

Weiss is expected to make significant changes to “60 Minutes” and other CBS News programs in the coming months.

Executives at other TV news organizations say privately that they are seeing a heavy influx of resumes from CBS News journalists due to the upheaval at the company.

MacFarlane covered Congress and the Justice Department. CBS viewers saw him featured during extended network coverage of the State of the Union addresses and election nights.

MacFarlane was in Butler, Pa., during the assassination attempt of President Trump in July 2024. He reported the first accounts of the shooting scene and emergency responses moments after the shots were fired.

Before arriving at CBS News, MacFarlane served for eight years as an investigative reporter for WRC-TV, the NBC station in Washington, D.C.

Palestinian journalist Amal Shamali, who worked as a correspondent for Qatar Radio, has been killed in an Israeli air strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) says.

Shamali, who was killed on Monday, also “worked with several Arab and local media outlets and was among the journalists who continued performing their media mission despite the ongoing assault and war on the Gaza Strip”, the PJS said in a statement.

More than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory on October 7, 2023, in response to Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.

“This represents one of the bloodiest periods for journalists in modern history, reflecting the scale of the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalism in an attempt to silence the voice of truth and prevent the documentation of the crimes and violations committed against the Palestinian people,” the PJS said.

The PJS also said: “Targeting journalists will not succeed in breaking the will of the Palestinian journalistic community or deterring it from fulfilling its professional and humanitarian mission of conveying the truth and documenting the crimes and aggression faced by the Palestinian people.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office released a statement after Shamali’s killing, saying it “strongly condemns the systematic targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation”.

The office also said it “holds the Israeli occupation, the U.S. administration, and the countries participating in the crime of genocide – such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France – fully responsible for committing these heinous and brutal crimes”.

It called on international and regional media associations, the international community and human rights organisations to condemn “the crimes” committed against Palestinian journalists and media professionals working in Gaza and to work towards holding Israel accountable for its “ongoing crimes” against Palestinian journalists.

Israeli attacks have killed about 13 journalists every month over more than two years of war, according to a tally by Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

Of those journalists, at least 10 of them worked for Al Jazeera, including Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had reported extensively from northern Gaza.

Israel’s war on Gaza has been the single deadliest conflict for journalists.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, more journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023, than in the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan – combined.

As per a report released early this year by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Palestine was the deadliest place to work as a journalist in 2025.

The IFJ said the Middle East was the most dangerous region for media professionals, accounting for 74 deaths last year – more than half of the 128 journalists and media workers killed.

The Middle East was followed by Africa with 18 deaths, the Asia Pacific (15), the Americas (11) and Europe (10), according to the report.

Since a US- and Qatar-brokered “ceasefire” came into effect in October, 640 Palestinians have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. At least 72,123 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023 while 171,805 people have been injured. At least 1,139 people were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.