Pentagon boots NPR, NYT, NBC in favor of mostly conservative outlets

The Pentagon is launching an “annual media rotation” program, with outlets getting swept from their workspaces and mostly conservative publications taking their spots. 

The move follows the Trump administration’s plans at the White House to offer more press credentials to nontraditional media, like podcasters and social media influencers, during press briefings. 

The Pentagon said its move is meant to “broaden access” to outlets that haven’t “previously enjoyed the privilege and journalistic value” of working within the building. 

In a memo from Defense Department spokesman John Ullyot to the Pentagon Press Association, the rotation schedule will vacate office space held by one of each press medium — print, online, TV and radio — each year starting Feb. 14. 

The first shake-up will see NBC News, The New York Times, National Public Radio and Politico booted from their workspaces in favor of the New York Post, Breitbart, One America News Network and HuffPost, a left-leaning outlet formerly known as the Huffington Post. 

“To be clear, the outlets that vacate the press spaces loaned to them by the [Defense] Secretary will remain as full members of the Pentagon Press Corps,” Mr. Ullyot wrote. “They will continue to enjoy the same media access to the Pentagon and will be able to attend and cover briefings and be considered for travel with civilian and military leaders in the Department as they have previously.” 

He added, “The only change will be giving up their physical workspaces in the building to allow new outlets to have their turn to become resident members of the Pentagon Press Corps.”

The move has already drawn criticism, notably from the board of the Pentagon Press Association, which wrote it was “greatly troubled by this unprecedented move by DOD to single out highly professional media who have covered the Pentagon for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.”

NBC News said in a statement that the network was “disappointed by the decision to deny us access to a broadcasting booth at the Pentagon that we’ve used for many decades.  

“Despite the significant obstacles this presents to our ability to gather and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and rigor NBC News always has.”

A spokesperson for HuffPost, which doesn’t have a Pentagon reporter, told CNN, “If the Trump administration and Secretary [Pete] Hegseth are interested in more hard-hitting coverage of their stewardship of the Defense Department from HuffPost, we are ready to deliver.”