Accountable in what sense? How are journalists trying to pry extra info from staff helpful? If they want to ask questions at press conferences and whatnot - as far as I understand they still can?
> Without proper press access how is there any real accountability?
No.
Real accountability is that the people can torture their leaders when they fail, but that just doesn't happen anymore.
Imagine that this was just a big rock and Trump was sitting on top of the rock like with a group of apes. Also, let's assume that Trump had set fire on the entire banana supply. Do you think the apes would not have picked a different leader immediately?
Rational people would understand that if you make people lose billions that there should be consequences, but someone the world population is more stupid than a bunch of apes.
Leaks and whistleblowers do not form in a vacuum. Less press means less oversight, fewer connections built, fewer threads pulled.
And even so, not all Pentagon business is all “life-and-death-top-secret”. Censorious governments LOVE the “national security” excuse.