CNN out, Breitbart in: Our reporter on what the new Pentagon ‘rotation’ means

The Pentagon press room hasn’t modified a lot since I began masking the U.S. navy on the top of America’s warfare in Iraq.

After I noticed it for the primary time, I believed it seemed quite a bit like my school newspaper workplaces: a large array of snack wrappers, cubicles, and a satellite tv for pc map of the Korean Peninsula at evening, the brilliant lights of the democratic South set in opposition to a Northern dictatorship perpetually plunged into darkness.

The massive distinction, in fact, was the skilled reporters. Within the Pentagon press corps there are all the time just a few newbies as I used to be, however we have been fortunately surrounded by among the greatest journalists within the enterprise – charming and chatty, however robust, and immersed within the ins and outs of the American navy.

I nonetheless cowl protection, however now I report on international safety, too, from Brussels. The timing of my newest journey again to Washington got here simply days after Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s workplace introduced that Pentagon press corps members NBC, The New York Occasions, and NPR should “rotate out” of their longtime workplace areas to make room for Breitbart Information and One America Information Community, shops which were vocal of their assist of President Donald Trump. (HuffPost, which leans left, was additionally supplied with new workplace house.)

When the Pentagon Press Affiliation protested Secretary Hegseth’s transfer, the administration doubled down on the variety of shops “rotating out” of their areas to incorporate CNN, Politico, and The Washington Put up. The deadline for his or her departure is Friday.

In my reporting on protection departments and militaries around the globe – from the Pentagon to Iraq, Afghanistan, and NATO headquarters – I’ve seen battlefields and turf wars. However what’s taking place now on the Pentagon is a primary.

How reporting on the Pentagon works

Being an novice after I arrived in 2006, I figured the Pentagon was going to be an oppositional place – we wished details, and protection officers didn’t wish to give them up. There’s loads of that, however I additionally met many of us delighted to shoot the breeze with reporters – to spin, positive, but in addition to share the information and to be taught.

A couple of spokesperson informed me, early of their tenure, that they discovered extra from veteran journalists masking the beat than they imparted when it comes to coverage after they began the job.

The press corps does its reporting largely by roaming the halls of the Pentagon. It’s essentially the most open protection division on this planet – uncommon in that whereas there are labeled corridors, credentialed reporters can go nearly anyplace else within the constructing, dropping by workplaces to talk or heading right down to the meals court docket for Starbucks.

The general public work of the press takes place within the briefing room. Query-and-answer periods with protection officers are broadcast on the Pentagon’s on-line channel and by the networks when there’s breaking information. By custom, The Related Press asks the primary query, after which the remainder of us take a flip, pursuing our personal queries or following up on colleagues’ questions when it appears they’re being evaded or the solutions from the rostrum are unclear.

On this manner, the press corps works as a crew of kinds. It travels collectively, too, with protection secretaries and navy officers on around-the-world journeys. It’s a good group.

And so it was as a gaggle that the Pentagon reporters reacted with alarm to the announcement earlier this month of a brand new annual “media rotation program.”

In a memo outlining the specifics, the appearing assistant to Secretary Hegseth, John Ullyot, strikes a tone, critics say, on the intersection of gracious patronage and veiled menace. He builds the case that Pentagon house – on mortgage from the protection secretary, he emphasizes – is a privilege the press enjoys on the pleasure of Mr. Hegseth. The phrases “mortgage” and “get pleasure from” are used a number of occasions within the succinct memo.

The shops vacating workplaces they’ve occupied, in some instances for many years, will nonetheless have the ability to cowl briefings and be thought-about for journey, Mr. Ullyot writes. This, he says, “stands as a tribute to the significance the Division has lengthy positioned on informing the general public concerning the U.S. navy and all it does to undertaking peace by means of power. It additionally honors the numerous correspondents who put their lives on the road, and in lots of instances died, whereas masking our most interesting in battle.”

Statements of protest launched by information organizations within the wake of the memo level out that their presence within the constructing is due to the U.S. Structure, with a Invoice of Rights that ensures freedom of speech, somewhat than due to the largesse of any explicit protection official or president.

Sample of punishing the press

There’s rising concern, nonetheless, that the Protection Division memo matches a rising sample of administration efforts to constrain the press and to make it extra submissive. The White Home introduced final week, for instance, that The Related Press could be barred from attending Oval Workplace occasions or flying with the president on Air Pressure One till it makes use of the brand new title President Trump has chosen for the Gulf of Mexico – the Gulf of America. (The information company, which produces tales that many different media shops publish, has mentioned it’ll proceed to make use of the time period Gulf of Mexico, whereas additionally acknowledging the title change.)

Punishing a information group that “refuses to adapt to government-imposed language is greater than an assault on one reporter or outlet – it’s an assault on the First Modification,” the Nationwide Press Membership wrote in a press release final week. “The function of the press is to not take orders from the federal government however somewhat to carry the federal government accountable.”

The U.S. troops, commanders, and protection officers whom journalists cowl, whereas typically nice folks and leaders, aren’t all the time “our most interesting,” as Mr. Ullyot places it, as a consequence of dangerous selections, cavalier accidents, ineptness, or self-serving cover-ups, to call just a few such eventualities.

They do, nonetheless, have at their disposal billions of taxpayer {dollars} – the Pentagon spends extra on protection than another nation, accounting for 40% of the world’s complete navy spending – and a state-sanctioned license to kill. It’s by means of the press that People can monitor and query the cash and energy at work right here – and the troops’ lives which might be on the road in assist of U.S. insurance policies.

Profession protection officers say the brand new administration by no means requested whether or not there’s sufficient house within the press room to accommodate extra journalists earlier than drafting the memo. There’s, they add, room for all of the shops they cite with out ejecting any.

This fuels concern that the brand new coverage quantities to a private assault on the reporters who broke information about Mr. Hegseth’s troubled marriages, a rape allegation, and his struggles with alcohol prematurely of his affirmation hearings.

Troops defend freedom of speech

Many within the navy discover the most recent developments as disturbing as journalists do. As after I coated the U.S. warfare in Iraq, some troops are excited to satisfy a reporter; others are guarded and need nothing to do with us. However they take an oath to combat to defend the Structure, which incorporates freedom of the press.

Within the not-a-fan camp was an Military infantry commander who tolerated my presence however didn’t need me touring with him throughout operations.

Consequently, when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb, I used to be not with this commander however somewhat within the car proper behind. The motive force gravely wounded, his fellow troopers loaded him into our car. Because the convoy ready to hurry again to base for medical care, they cradled his head, comforting him whereas he convulsed and threw up.

After the soldier was delivered to U.S. navy medics awaiting his arrival, our driver, a younger personal, began crying, satisfied within the stress of the assault that he hadn’t pushed rapidly sufficient. His teammates hugged him after which held his cheeks of their fingers, forcing him to look of their eyes so they may inform him that they, by no means of their lives, had seen a Humvee go so quick as he’d pushed to get his pal again to base after that bombing.

When the commander referred to as his troops collectively later that night, he informed me to go away earlier than he shared an replace. The troops beside me, gently, protested. I’d been within the bombing, too, they famous, nodding within the course of the soldier’s vomit on my garments. I stayed. We discovered collectively that the soldier had died.

Right now, there’s an addition to the Pentagon press room, an indication on the door that reads, merely, #NotTheEnemy.

It was taped there by a reporter, almost certainly – I haven’t requested round – however maybe by a supporter who believes that although we stand aside, we’re as a lot part of the place, and of its protection of freedoms, as anyone else in these halls.

Editor’s word: This story, initially printed on Feb. 21, was up to date to notice the inclusion of HuffPost within the press rotation program.