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The dozens of broadcast, print, radio, and online journalists who cover the Pentagon and the US military are not the enemy. But new secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s first days on the job are not offering reassurance that he sees it that way. He so far appears to be wholeheartedly endorsing the Trump notion that reporters should be treated poorlyâunless they are part of Fox News, his former employer.
Some red flags on why this is a terrible strategy: Hegseth has refused to share with the public any real insight into when, or if, he would recommend deploying troops to hot spots around the globe. He has declined to shut the door on military action against sovereign allies, including seizing the Panama Canal and Greenland, or on directing strikes against drug cartels inside Mexico. Reporters, and the public, do not know his thinking on these critical issues.
But it was the surprise Friday evening memoâannouncing that four long-standing members of the Pentagon press corps were losing their offices in the building, and being replaced by mainly partisan outlets favored by the presidentâthat most directly indicated how little Hegseth and the rest of the current Pentagon leadership recognize the role of the journalists who cover them. According to the memo, the New York Times, NBC, NPR, and Politico are all being evicted from their dedicated workspaces inside the Pentagonâs âcorrespondentsâ corridor.â In their place will be three reliably conservative outletsâBreitbart News, One America News Network, and the New York Postâas well as the liberal HuffPost. (A spokesperson for HuffPost, which does not have a dedicated Pentagon reporter and did not request to be added, told NBC News that the publication is prepared to deliver âhard-hitting coverage.â)
The announcement sparked swift outrage. The four organizations getting evicted are part of a broader Pentagon press corps whose members have had desks loaned to them for more than thirty years. Their steady presence inside the building means that the reporters who cover the Pentagon can be in touch with trusted sources throughout the day and be ready to quickly file news stories. Itâs a very valuable relationship, most importantly for an informed public.
I first manned a desk in the press area in 1989, during the invasion of Panama. I was inside the building on the morning of 9/11, when Pentagon police officers made sure reporters got out safely. During my twenty-one years at CNN, until I left the network in 2022, I covered every conflict US troops were involved in, including Bosnia, the first Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syriaâbut just as importantly, I was able to walk the corridors of the Pentagon, talking to officials and quickly going on the air from the CNN office, with timely and accurate information. I was there when Defense Secretary James Mattis would periodically stop by the correspondentsâ corridor, on the way back from the dry cleaners down the hall, to have a chat and answer detailed questions off the record. I was also there when a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suddenly appeared at the door of the CNN booth to express concern about something weâd said on air. All of these types of interactions are critical for the entire press corps to do its job better every day, and to be an antidote to the kinds of speed-of-light misinformation that often spreads online. That is the gold standardâbut you have to be there to meet it.
Needless to say, losing office space means losing around-the-clock access, and that is a blow to the individual outlets that are getting the boot. But itâs also a blow to the general public. During both Democratic and Republican administrations, members of the press corps have regularly lobbied for more frequent, on-the-record briefingsâpushing back against the proliferation of news drippings from an unnamed âsenior Pentagon official.â Itâs anyoneâs guess whether the new residents of the correspondentsâ corridor will be as strong in advocating for transparency as powerhouses like the Times or NPR.
The Pentagon says its latest moves are an effort to let different media into the press area via an annual rotation, and that the exiled outlets will still be allowed to travel on the secretary’s plane. And for now at least, several familiar institutions remain, including CBS, CNN, ABC, Reuters, and the Associated Pressâbut no one knows who will be next. Meanwhile, some overhaul of the press accommodations is urgently needed, and a critical part of expanding access for all. Media space for broadcast outlets is in short supply, while several desks reserved for print reporters sit empty. The entire press area is long overdue for radical modernization of the available technology, including better access to high-speed Wi-Fi. Itâs regrettable Hegsethâs team appears not to have considered whether there was a way to let even more reporters into the Pentagon, including from nontraditional outlets, without evicting others.
But itâs hard not to interpret the decision as anything other than a form of targeted retribution against publications that the Trump administration doesnât like. Hegseth might think he wants chummy reporters, but here’s a free piece of advice for the secretary: Sadly, the US military will likely again be deployed to war. History tells us troops will be injured; some may not make it home. The Pentagon press corps will cover those events and endeavor to share full and accurate information with the American people, who will be watching closely for news they can trust. It makes no sense to take actions to hinder that effort.
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