Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has given far fewer war briefings then his predecessors, and the Pentagon has relied heavily on social media to garner support from the American people. Photo by Kyle Mazza /UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON, June 10 (UPI) -- The Pentagon's top officials conducted far fewer press briefings and interviews during a period of major combat operations than the department has in decades, a Medill News Service review of five previous U.S. military flashpoints showed.
Instead, throughout the Iran war, Pentagon leaders have conducted much of their wartime messaging through a social media blitz -- but with few specifics.
"All of [the Pentagon's] policies right now are intended to create the least capacity for oversight, the least transparency and the least understanding of the American public," said Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defense College in Copenhagen, who is an expert in U.S. military-media relations. "It's just an attempt to strangle the message."
Such a shift in wartime messaging strategy comes as the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's tenure has made a number of moves that critics say turn the department more opaque and less accountable to Congress and the American people. In combination, the changes augur a new approach in the way the Defense Department informs the public about its operations.
