New Pentagon Press Corps Test-Drives the Briefing Room

A new group of media figures was given credentials to cover the Pentagon after many traditional news outlets refused to sign its new reporting rules.

Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s press secretary, approached the lectern on Tuesday morning. “Welcome to the Department of War,” she said.

The greeting was wholly appropriate, considering that Ms. Wilson was speaking to a briefing room of people undergoing something of an orientation program this week at the Pentagon. Most of them are media figures newly credentialed to work as journalists within the sprawling complex, agreeing to strict new rules that nearly all traditional correspondents have refused to sign.

The result has been a press corps full of people who are outspoken cheerleaders for the administration. And Ms. Wilson expressed satisfaction with the turnabout. “Legacy media chose to self-deport from this building,” she said, adding: “The American people don’t trust these propagandists because they stopped telling the truth. So we’re not going to beg these old gatekeepers to come back.”