(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Andrew Thornebrooke, a national security reporter at the right-leaning The Epoch Times, has resigned after the outlet agreed to the Pentagon’s new press restrictions, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Thornebrooke, in his resignation letter on Friday, said agreeing to the new rules was a decision to “abdicate our responsibility as journalists in favor of merely repeating state narratives.”
His letter also contained the following passage: “I can no longer reconcile my role with the direction the paper has chosen, including its increasing willingness to promote partisan materials, publish demonstrably false information, & manipulate the reporting of its ground staff to shape the worldview of our readers.”
The Times reported he also criticized the outlet for referring to Antifa as a terrorist organization.
His biography on the EP website already refers to his work in the past tense, as of Sunday evening:
“Andrew Thornebrooke is a former national security correspondent for The Epoch Times covering China-related issues with a focus on defense, military affairs, and national security. He holds a master&
#8217;s in military history from Norwich University.”
Epoch Times editor-in-chief Jasper Fakkert, in a statement on Friday, said the outlet “does not view the new guidelines for Pentagon press access as an impediment to our reporting.”
Fakkert added: “Having been subject to repeated attacks by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past two decades, The Epoch Times is no stranger to attempts to suppress freedom of the press; the Pentagon’s new media access policy is no such attack.”
Thornebrooke’s resigned two days after the major television networks – ABC, NBC and CBS — as well as Fox News and CNN, banded together in a joint statement to denounce the Pentagon’s updated rules, which the outlets said threaten “core journalistic protections.”
The rebuke comes after the Pentagon recently updated its rules for credentialed journalists. That update said reporters who ask military personnel and Department of Defense officials to leak information could be deemed “security risks,” and risk having their credentials revoked.
The Pentagon revised its update after reporters and press groups were upset with a draft of new rules circulated last month. That draft called for reporters to get approval from Defense Department officials before publishing stories, even if they contained unclassified information. Failing to receive approval could lead to reporters losing their credentials, the draft said.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, during an interview with Peter Doocy on Fox News earlier this month, slammed reporters for looking
“When someone is providing information that’s otherwise classified or otherwise not for disclosure, that’s a problem. So, we’re doing everything we can protocol-wise to make sure those are minimized,” Hegseth said.
The Pentagon’s new rules do not require credentialed journalists to get approval before publishing non-public information. It does require news organizations and reporters to acknowledge its updated policies within one week and sign that they agree to them, “even if I do not necessarily agree with such policies and procedures.”
The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 and is based in New York City.
Its “About” section on its website said it has a “deep commitment to freedom of the press, drawing inspiration from the experiences of our first reporters and editors in China, who faced state-sanctioned censorship, torture, and jail.
You can read the full NYT story by clicking here.