In response to new restrictions placed on reporters at the Pentagon, most of the Pentagon press corp turned in their badges and left the building last week. The outlets left are several right wing outlets and a smattering of foreign outfits. One aspect that seems to have been missed by even many in the news media, is that one basic element of the Pentagon press operation hasn’t been happening even before this. The Bulwark’s Tim Miller commented last week, “Imagine if you’re the Journal Korea blogger now who just gets the first question every day at the at the briefing.” So he was assuming there was a daily briefing going on. It isn’t a crazy idea, but it isn’t close to true.
In reality, there have only been two press briefings done by the Pentagon’s spokesperson Sean Parnell. That Sean Parnell isn’t the former Governor of Alaska, but another politician who got out of a Senate race because of domestic abuse allegations. He held his first press conference in March and a second in July.
A search on Sean Parnell’s name on the Department’s YouTube account only brings up three more appearances. Two of those involved students visiting the Pentagon. The final one is from a “weekly” video series that only has one video posted on YouTube (there have been more videos, but they haven’t been posted to YouTube for some reason).
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