Washington – The Defense Ministry announced on Friday evening that it would institute a new “annual media rotation program” for its internal press corps, effectively eliminating several major media, including NBC News, from their Pentagon office spaces in favor of other points of sale.
In addition to NBC News, New York Times, national and political public radio must leave their dedicated workspaces. Press organizations discovered in a memo sent to the press without being informed individually, and an e-mail that accompanies it included a message that said, in part, “no additional information will be provided for the moment.”
“For more than half a century, the Pentagon Press Corps has benefited from work on individual office spaces which offer coveted and open access to some of the main military and civil leaders in the department,” read the spokesperson From the Pentagon memo, John Ulyot, sent to the Pentagon Press Association.
“In order to expand access to the limited space of the corridor of correspondents to the points of sale which had not previously enjoyed the privilege and the journalist value of the work from the physical office space in the Pentagon, From February 14, 2025, “wrote Ulyot, there will be” a new annual media rotation program for these dedicated media spaces. ”
In a statement, NBC News said: “We are disappointed by the decision to refuse us access to a Pentagon broadcasting stand that we have used for many decades. Despite the important obstacles that this presents to our ability to bring together and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and the same rigor NBC News has always. »»
The decision of Pentagon officials comes seven days after the Senate confirmed the defense secretary Pete Hegseth by the narrowest margins. This followed weeks of coverage on his behavior and treatment of women, especially allegations according to which his consumption of alcohol alarmed his colleagues and his second wife feared for his safety around him. Hegseth denied allegations.
NBC News reported on some of the allegations against Hegseth.
The memo has identified the rotary organizations by Medium – by selecting one from television, printing, radio and online news to exchange and release. He said that the turning press organizations had two weeks to leave their spaces.
The new turning points of sale are one America News Network – which will take the place of NBC News – the New York Post, Breitbart News Network and Huffpost.
Three of the new points of sale are conservative, while HuffPost is leaning progressive.
HuffPost does not have a Pentagon correspondent, and the site did not ask for a space, said spokesperson Lizzie Grams.
“If the Trump administration and the Secretary Hegseth are interested in a more impactful coverage of their stewardship from the Ministry of Defense from Huffpost, we are ready to deliver,” Grams said.
A spokesperson for One America News said in a statement that the press-actuality has operated an office in Washington since 2013, and that he is “looking forward to having access to the physical office space in the Pentagon and will use the full -time accommodation as soon as it is available. “”
NBC News contacted other media to comment.
The memo did not include details on the process of the new “rotation program”, including the way in which civil servants have chosen the points of sale necessary to leave the office space first, how the new points of sale were chosen and the following, and how long a point of sale would remain without without an office space before it has returned to the building.
NBC News has organized its work space dedicated to the Pentagon for decades, allowing the network to broadcast its journalism throughout the day and in the minutes after the latest news. The “stand”, as they are called, is wired with technical equipment, telephone lines and a camera installed by NBC.
It is not clear if NBC News will have the technical capacity to distribute from the Pentagon once it will erase its equipment from its workspace.
Ullyot noted that the points of sale which are canceled continue to be members of the Pentagon Press Corps, which means, in part, they “will be able to assist and cover the briefings and be considered to travel with civil and military leaders of the department as They did it before. ”
Friday evening, the Pentagon Press Association published a statement saying: “Our resident press corps has widened over the years and we have always welcomed new members and will continue to do so.”
“However, we are very disturbed by this unprecedented DOD decision to highly professional media that have covered the Pentagon for decades, within the framework of republican and democratic administrations,” the statement said. “We asked for a meeting and we will keep everyone informed.”
During her first press briefing this week, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration of President Donald Trump “opened the briefing room in New Media Voices”. The first people she called were Mike Allen from Axios – a long -standing political journalist on a site considered as general – and Matt Boyle de Breitbart, a conservative site.
Leavitt also said that his team worked “diligently to restore the press allowance for 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration.”
