The Pentagon released revised guidelines Friday that removed a provision allowing U.S. military commanders to treat war reporters as "unprivileged belligerents" if they believe the correspondents are cooperating with the enemy.
The modified Law of War manual also removed wording that compared journalists to spies.
The Defense Department opened its year-long review into the guidelines after media organizations complained that the manual included provisions that commanders could use to detain journalists over apparent transgressions.
"The manual was restructured to make it more clear and up front that journalists are civilians and are to be protected as such," Charles Allen, the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel, told reporters Thursday.
The former manual allowed commanders to treat journalists as "unprivileged belligerents" at times and said that war-time reporting was "very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying."
The old guidelines also said that governments "may need to censor journalists’ work so they do not reveal sensitive information."
The updated provisions published Friday drop references to spying and censorship and note that "journalists play a vital role in free societies and the rule of law and in providing information about armed conflict." The revised manual also explicitly says that practicing journalism should not be equated to assisting enemy forces.
"Where possible, efforts should be made to distinguish between the activities of journalists and the activities of enemy forces, so that journalists’ activities [such as] meetings or other contacts with enemy personnel for journalistic purposes do not result in a mistaken conclusion that a journalist is part of enemy forces," the guidelines read.
Jennifer O’Connor, the Pentagon’s general counsel, said the updated provisions express "more clearly the department’s support for the protection of journalists under the Law of War."
"The department's mission is to defend the very freedoms that journalists exercise," O’Connor said in a statement Friday.