headline: Hegseth accuses press of politicizing US casualties; journalists cite long history of war coverage publish_date: ‘2026-03-0…

  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the American press of reporting U.S. military deaths in the Iran war to damage President Donald Tr…
  • “When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it. The press only wants to make the …
  • The episode revisits a tension that has recurred across American military history — between government efforts to manage public perceptio…
  • White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the characterization when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins questioned her about it at her own …

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the American press of reporting U.S. military deaths in the Iran war to damage President Donald Trump’s standing, remarks that drew swift rebuttals from journalists who said casualty coverage has been standard practice under administrations of both parties. Hegseth made the comments at a Pentagon briefing while addressing the deaths of six U.S. Army reservists killed in an Iranian attack on an operations center in Kuwait.

“When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”

The episode revisits a tension that has recurred across American military history — between government efforts to manage public perception of war and press coverage of its human cost — tracing from Vietnam’s televised carnage through the Gulf War-era ban on coffin photography, lifted by President Barack Obama in 2009.

White House backs Hegseth’s framing

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the characterization when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins questioned her about it at her own news conference.

“You take every single thing this administration says and try to use it to make the president look bad,” Leavitt said. “That’s an objective fact.”

Several journalists rejected the framing outright. CNN anchor Jake Tapper called Hegseth’s statement “a warped way of looking at the world” and “Ahistorical.”

“The news media covers fallen service members because they have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country,” Tapper said. “It’s a tribute. It’s an honor.”

Dan Lamothe, military affairs reporter for The Washington Post, posted on social media that Hegseth’s remarks would not stop him from continuing to cover wartime casualties — a practice he said has continued under presidents of both major political parties.

“These efforts haven’t always been perfect,” Lamothe wrote. “But they’ve highlighted sacrifices by American servicemembers and their families, and shortcomings that sometimes allowed these deaths to happen. We’ll continue to do so. It’s too important to stop.”

A tension with deep roots

Government ambivalence about press coverage of war’s human cost stretches back decades. Vietnam was among the most accessible American wars for reporters; journalists stationed in the country sent back a steady stream of footage and photography that many historians credit with shifting public opinion against the conflict.

Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchor of the most-watched evening news program in the country, reported from Vietnam in 1968 and concluded the only rational way out was a negotiated peace. “If I’ve lost Cronkite,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “I’ve lost Middle America.”

Timothy Naftali, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, said the lesson presidents drew from that experience has never fully faded.

“For many presidents, the lesson seemed to be: Don’t allow the realities of war into people’s living rooms if you can help it,” Naftali said.

During the Gulf War in 1991, the Pentagon banned news coverage of ceremonies returning fallen service members’ remains to the United States, citing privacy for military families. Critics argued the ban was designed to shield the public from images of coffins. That restriction, with limited exceptions, remained in place until Obama lifted it in 2009.

Access for reporters covering American military operations tightened further in the wars of the following decade. Jessica Donati, a Wall Street Journal and Reuters correspondent who covered the Afghanistan war, wrote in 2021 for the Modern War Institute that “it’s easier these days for journalists in Afghanistan to embed with the Taliban than with the U.S. military.”

Access limited in the current war

The nature of the current conflict — fought thousands of miles from the American homeland and not yet involving a large ground presence inside Iran — has limited the number of American casualties and made each death more prominent in the news cycle. Several journalists noted that the practice of reporting on military casualties long predates the Trump administration.

Access from inside Iran has been sparse. A CNN team led by correspondent Frederik Pleitgen entered the country and, according to the network’s reporting, became the first journalists from a U.S.-based television network to do so during the conflict.

Robert H. Reid, who served as a top editor at Stars and Stripes from 2014 to 2025, said the publication’s audience — primarily active-duty service members — consistently wanted more than raw casualty counts. They wanted to know where the fallen had grown up, who they left behind, and what they cared about, he said.

Reid, an Associated Press international correspondent for most of his career, said those who died in service deserved recognition of their full lives, not just the circumstances of their deaths.

Naftali framed the broader stakes plainly.

“The public needs to know that war is not a video game,” he said. “It affects people.”