The headquarters of the U.S. military has responded to a protest by some news organizations over the planned eviction of mainstream media outlets from its shared office space within the Pentagon by expanding the eviction list.
On Friday, Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot distributed a memo to affected news outlets notifying them of the expanded eviction list, which also named the news organizations and publications that will move into the affected office space.
Initially, four news organizations — NBC News, National Public Radio (NPR), the New York Times and Politico — were affected by a new initiative called the Annual Media Rotation Program (AMPR), which involved the sharing of limited office space in a section of the Pentagon called Correspondents’ Corridor where members of the media have operated for decades.
Some of the initially affected news outlets have occupied offices within the Correspondents’ Corridor for several years, which Ullyot said put competing organizations — including smaller ones — at a disadvantage. Ullyot said the affected outlets had until February 14 to vacate their offices, at which point several right-of-center publications — including One America News Network, Breitbart News and the New York Post — would move in.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon met with some news outlets who protested the decision. Some outlets complained that being forced to vacate their offices would put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to others who were allowed to stay.
To assuage this concern, Ullyot said the eviction list would expand from four news organizations to eight. The Pentagon gave to the other four affected outlets — CNN, the Washington Post, The Hill and The War Zone — in a memo circulated on Friday and obtained by The Desk on Saturday.
To accommodate the move-outs, Ullyot said the Pentagon will extend the eviction date by one week, with the eight outlets expected to fully vacate their shared office space by February 21. Television networks who are affected by the change will be given secure storage space within the Pentagon for their cameras, tripods and other equipment, he wrote.
Nearly all the news outlets selected to move into the Pentagon’s media offices are right-of-center editorial operations. Some of them have courted favor with Trump and his allies over the years, while a few have direct connections to officials within the Trump administration.
The Huffington Post, which has historically operated as a progress news website, was acquired by BuzzFeed in 2020. Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential contender who now works within the Department of Government Efficiency, owns a minority share in BuzzFeed.
Trump and his administration officials have given numerous interviews to Newsmax, Breitbart News, One America News and the Washington Examiner over the years, and the New York Post endorsed his third campaign for presidency last year.
The Free Press is a newsletter launched by former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss on Substack in 2021; last year, it published an op-ed by former NPR editor Uri Berliner that was critical of the public radio organization’s editorial position and newsroom diversity initiatives. Some Republican members of Congress have this year called for pulling the public on federal financial support of NPR by winding down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Berliner was hired by the Free Press two months after his editorial was published by them.
The removal of The Hill is likely to give the appearance of fairness across the board, as the publication is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also operates the cable news channel NewsNation. Some prime-time commentary programs on NewsNation heave leaned on right-of-center guests to draw viewership, including former Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera, who frequently appear on a one-hour program hosted by ex-CNN commentator Chris Cuomo. The Hill recently promoted Chris Stirewalt to serve as its political editor; Stirewalt worked for Fox News until 2020.
