The Silencing of the Pentagon

Sent to newspapers 8/21/2026

You'll be hearing less from the Navy

I subscribe to the weekly newsletter from Ad Fontes Media, which is a data service that tracks the tone and content of major media outlets. Ad Fontes’ main product is a chart that plots media outlets on a quadrant according to bias (left or right – the X-axis) and content (news vs. analysis – the Y-axis).

Ad Fontes also tracks coverage of the “most viral” story of the previous week. This week’s viral story is the USS Abraham Lincoln. For former Navy public affairs officers (PAOs) like me, this should make our little hearts explode with joy.

What we are hearing about aircraft carriers this past week hasn’t come from the Navy. And the Navy’s silence is chilling.

When I served in the Navy’s public affairs headquarters, a long time ago, shameless shilling for carriers was Job One. We had cool posters up all over the office depicting the massive flight deck of the USS George Washington at sea, bristling with fully loaded tactical aircraft and the slogan “4 ½ ACRES OF SOVEREIGN AMERICAN TERRITORY. WHERE IT’S NEEDED. WHEN IT’S NEEDED.”

(It was also a time when the Navy Superhornet program was competing for funding against the Air Force F-22 program. I’m not saying that tormenting the Air Force Newsdesk was encouraged, but I enjoyed taping copy paper together in an infinity loop and pressing “send” to the USAF incoming fax line.)

My job for a while was managing the embark program – that is, locating, vetting and scheduling influencers for overnight trips on whatever carrier was doing workups off of San Diego or Norfolk. Then, on the Newsdesk, we sorted media requests for embarks and pitched journalists to head out to promote new capabilities or Fleet initiatives.

We told the story about a dynamic, lethal, agile Navy ready to respond around the world 24/7. We also offered access to the men and women who plan, build, train, drive, sustain, and maintain the Fleet.

We had the cooperation and support of leadership and operational public affairs and media teams throughout the Navy staff, the Pentagon, the sustainment force and the operational Navy.

It was demanding and thrilling work. It was a distinct honor to tell the story of the world’s most powerful naval force and the people who made it possible. 

Military public affairs is distinctly different from other government public affairs and public relations, and different again from political PR and commercial marketing. I would call it “strategic truthtelling.” The art of it is taught at the Defense Information School, shortened to DINFOS. The senior public affairs officer in the Navy is called the Chief of Information, abbreviated CHINFO.

Military public affairs in the United States during the last 50 or 60 years has centered around some core beliefs. These include thoughtful transparency. That means American taxpayers and individual servicemembers deserve to know what their military is doing as long as it isn’t classified or doesn’t give away important operational information to an adversary.

There’s a benefit to this mindset. When you are a military superpower and a democracy, being open about your military is a big flex. It shows pride without malice. You have millions of volunteers allowed to speak about their work on active duty, looking fit, using the most lethal hardware the world has ever seen? Well, as they say, it ain’t bragging if it’s true.

The Department of Defense published its Principles of Information on January 21, 1970. Thay have been reissued several times, as recently as 2017. Here they are:

·      No Censorship or Propaganda to Troops: Service members and their families receive a free flow of general and military news without propaganda or censorship.

·      No Cover-Ups for Embarrassment: Information is never withheld or classified merely to shield the DoD or government from criticism.

·      Protection of National Security and Safety: Release is restricted only when disclosure compromises national security, operational safety, or service members' privacy.

·      Intentional Public Affairs Planning: Major programs require advance coordination and planning to expedite information flow, strictly avoiding propaganda.

The Principles are still in place in 2026 but they mean about as much as another ultimatum on the Strait of Hormuz from President Trump on social media.

Ten years ago, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, or OASD (PA), essentially the chief Pentagon spokesman, held press conferences two to three times a week. This was while we had ongoing combat commitments in Iraq and Syria, and whatever you want to call what we were doing in Afghanistan.

In 2026, there have been two. The last one was in May. Some guy who is titled “acting press secretary,” Joel Valdez, spends much of his time on social media threatening news outlets. The Pentagon press corridor, which was a working press office where credentialed journalists worked and filed stories, has been turned into a Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) based on a lie, requiring cipher locks and constant escorts (OASD (PA) said that the speechwriters were constantly accessing classified material. I’ve been a military speechwriter. Hogwash.).

Nearly all journalists have turned in their Pentagon badges.

The military public affairs community is not going unscathed either. The Army’s collapsed quickly, with the last senior PAO resigning last year. The current chief of public affairs is a political campaign consultant from North Carolina.

The Navy, with a deeply embedded professional military public affairs force, has been quietly kneecapped. Typically led by a one-star admiral, there has been no selection board since 2024. The admiral selected by the 2024 board, a highly respected and qualified Black PAO, was not permitted to take the CHINFO billet, and was assigned as the Director of Information Operations (not a PAO billet, but more of an information warfare billet) on the Navy headquarters staff.

Since then, the chief of Naval Reserve public affairs, a prominent defense trade publication editor, has served as acting CHINFO. He was removed from the position on August 19. There will be no formal selection board this year for a rear admiral PAO. Instead there will be an “administrative process,” or no process at all.

I suggest that we as taxpayers and voters should question a defense secretary who has asked for a $1.5 trillion defense budget and won’t say anything about how it is spent or about the Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Guardians under his command. As we should a president calling for costly and potentially dangerous ship redesigns and superfluous ship classes as the deficit zooms past $40 trillion, double what it was when he took office.

If you have read this far, thank you. I hope you care about our military and our Navy as much as I. And I hope you agree that you should not have to be learning new things about the military and the Navy from someone who was last on active duty when fax machines were in regular use.

Merritt Hamilton Allen is an executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at merritt@merrittocracy.news.