On January 31st, President Trump ordered NPR news, NBC News, the New York Times, and Politico to vacate their Pentagon offices. This is part of a new rotation plan for media sources, which will switch every year. The new media companies will move in by February 14th. Membership of the Pentagon Press Corps does not seemed to be impacted, only physical access to offices.
The purpose of there even being media offices in the Pentagon goes back to a decision in 1982, specifically because of the tension of US-involved conflicts. News companies originally were contracted by a singular member of the company being assigned to focus on the Pentagon's affairs, usually these people were former military or at least well-versed in political affairs. With the historical problems of wire transfers being expensive and the difficulties of having only one source, the Pentagon Press Corps served to have multiple sources should specific concerns come up. An example could be a bigger media company recieveling news from a paid infomant over wire transfer that the Department of Defense plans on withdrawing from X country. In the past, this would be endlessly repeated in an echo chamber as ground breaking news without any ability to actually double check or even corroborate. The best document I could find about the history of the Pentagon Press Corps was document ADA135525, which describes the system and its history, as well as ways to smooth the entire process. It does not explain its modern purpose, but gives perspective as to how it arose.
Based on AllSides' wonderfully collected data, relative leanings for each of these outlets goes as follows- Politico is the most central bias media source, with -1.20 (0 being central), NBC News having a left leaning of -1.80, NPR News leaning left just slightly more with -2.00, and New York Times being the most left group, with a score of -2.20. All of these estimates have medium confidence, except New York Times, which has high confidence. Please note that the opinion articles for both NPR and New York Times has been ignored, as it is not relevant to the media reporters within the Pentagon, these are reporters skilled in interpreting military information and financial details, usually focusing on giving the direct data and technical explanation to other teams in the company.
These four media companies are being replaced with One America News Network, The New York Post, Breitbart News, and HuffPost. The ratings of these media companies are as follows- One America News with 3.10, leaning right, with 0 being central, the New York Post with 2.93, Breitbart News with a 6.00, and HuffPost with a -4.30, the only left leaning or left group. HuffPost has a high confidence rating, with Breitbart has a low confidence rating, and the other two have medium confidence rating. Please note the distinction between the New York Times and New York Post. Also, mildly amusing, HuffPost is owned by BuzzFeed.
Regardless of political leaning, all four of the removed groups have a more central view on average than the four proposed News groups. The highest leaning media company of the first group (-2.20, New York Times) is still lower than the most central media company of the second group (2.93, New York Post).
Take everything here with a grain of salt, and research on your own, as you should do with everything. I can't say what I would do as president, because I do not know what the true intentions behind this Press Corps are, and whether or not they are helpful in the modern age. There is much I do not understand, and I defer to the expert's knowledge of the subject. I, however, would watch this carefully, as any favoring from the government is suspicious at best.
I do not like the fact I learned of the Pentagon Press Corp was because they were changing it. I do not like that there was no knowledge of this system beforehand, at least to my perspective. But I will try and understand to the best of my knowledge, and watch it closely. Should it do something to warrant a closer look, I will do so.





















