WaPo’s Botched Hegseth Hit Job Proves the Pentagon Desperately Needs New Media

The Washington Post’s latest attempt to discredit Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has become an embarrassment for the embattled outlet after its reporting was called into question by a New York Times story published on Monday. Two of the Wapo’s “decorated” national-security correspondents, Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima, published a front-page exclusive alleging that Hegseth verbally ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” aboard a suspected narco-trafficking vessel during a September 2nd special-operations strike in the Caribbean. The Post’s correspondents claim two anonymous officials with “direct knowledge” of the operation informed them that a second strike to finish off drug traffickers that survived was done to comply with a no-quarter directive from Hegseth that potentially violated rules of engagement. On Monday, the New York Times published a detailed report that directly undercut the Post’s story. Citing five U.S. officials familiar with the operation (all granted anonymity because of the ongoing congressional inquiry), the Times reported that Hegseth’s actual guidance was limited to pre-strike authorization for a “lethal kinetic operation” to destroy the vessel and its cargo. There was no mention of survivors and no order to “kill everybody.” Once the strike began, Hegseth gave no further instructions; the decision-making on the second engagement fell entirely to Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley on the scene, who judged the remaining individuals still posed a threat. That account aligns with the White House and Pentagon’s flat denials from the start of this controversy. The Times’ reporting has on-the-record information from multiple sources inside the chain of command, while the Post’s version, built on just two anonymous officials and no independent corroboration, has lost all credibility. What began as a blockbuster accusation has quickly become the latest example of a legacy outlet peddling an inflammatory narrative that doesn’t survive even basic scrutiny from its own peers. The timing for this debacle couldn’t have been more poetic, as it serves as a stark backdrop for why the Pentagon’s updated press-credential policy isn’t a threat to journalism. It’s a response to a credibility crisis in the legacy media, where anonymously-sourced bombshells prioritize partisan narrative over verification, eroding public trust and demanding more seats at the table for fresh voices in journalism. Perhaps worst of all, it delegitimizes America and the men and women who serve it.This isn’t the first time the Washington Post has run fake news, and it won’t be the last. They’re one of the main reasons why trust in the news media has plummeted to historic lows. Gallup’s most recent survey shows only 28 percent of Americans express confidence in the press, with just 11 percent of Republicans and 12 percent of independents believing what they read. These aren’t fleeting dips; they stem from three decades of high-profile lies.The Wapo’s Hegseth hitpiece, fueled by unnamed officials and zero on-the-record corroboration, is far too common in the national security apparatus. In fact, as I pointed out recently, the Iraq war was launched on a false pretense just like this. In fact, the Washington Post’s own role in the run-up to the Iraq War is a disgrace. Between 2002 and 2003, the paper published more than 140 front-page stories (almost all sourced to anonymous intelligence officials) that Saddam Hussein possessed active weapons of mass destruction.Fast forward less than two decades, and the Post was at it again. In June 2020, it published a series of breathless articles, once more reliant on anonymous intelligence sources, claiming Russia had paid Taliban-linked militants bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan. U.S. military investigators later found those allegations lacked corroborating evidence and could not be tied to a single American casualty, yet the damage was done, inflaming calls for confrontation with Moscow at the height of an election year. The same playbook (unverifiable leaks, alarming headlines, zero accountability when the story collapses) has now been deployed against Pete Hegseth, proving the Post has not learned a thing in twenty years.