Pentagon Official Exposes Secret Press Blacklist

Daniel Heuer / REUTERS The Pentagon has a secret list of journalists it will no longer speak to.

An official at the Department of Defense, which has already infringed on journalists’ rights, inadvertently revealed to a reporter at The Intercept that the blacklist exists, as he threatened the reporter that if they kept inquiring about Pentagon happenings, they too would be on it.

“You’ll be put on a list of people to disregard,” Richard Allee, an executive assistant with CENTCOM public affairs, told The Intercept reporter, Nick Turse .

When asked for further information about this apparent list, saying, “You have a list of people to disregard?” Allee confirmed it, saying simply, “Yes.” When asked to divulge who specifically is on the list, he replied: “I’m not privy to give you that information.” The Inercept further detailed that the reporter had been calling CENTCOM multiple times and was even placed on hold for more than two hours.

Eventually, Allee picked up and said: “They’re not going to answer your call if you just keep calling and calling.” He then insulted the reporter, saying a “less accusatory attitude towards the personnel here would go a lot further than badgering them when you don’t get something you want, when you want it.” It was then that the existence of the blacklist was revealed, with Allee saying, “It’s not a list that we publicize,” before he hung up.

When reached for comment, Capt.

Tim Hawkins, U.S.

Central Command spokesperson, denied that CENTCOM kept such a list.

He called The Intercept’s article “a complete misrepresentation of exchanges that occurred” and accused the reporter of having “repeatedly harassed CENTCOM staff who remained professional while expressing that his rude behavior was unacceptable.” Seth Stern, the director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, strongly criticized the list, saying in a statement that “threatening journalists with placement on a blacklist in retaliation for reporting the government doesn’t like is as unconstitutional as it gets.” “This should put to rest the Pentagon’s prior claims that its anti-press policies—like its infamous requirement that reporters sign pledges to only print authorized information—are somehow content neutral,” he added.

The news of the secret blacklist comes as the Defense Department under Pete Hegseth has crusaded against press freedoms to stifle unsavory coverage.

In 2025, the Pentagon implemented new policies that revoked long-standing workspaces and credentials to fill the Pentagon with pro-Trump right-wing news organizations.

It later went further by revoking press credentials from all journalists unless they signed onto a contract that forbade them from gathering or soliciting any information–a basic tenet of journalism.