Pentagon hires ABC reporter to improve PR

The Pentagon will announce this week that Geoff Morrell, previously a White House correspondent for ABC News, has been hired as the Defense Department’s on-camera briefer, a senior administration official told The Politico.

Morrell, 38, will become a familiar face of the administration on television and the Web. The official said that a working journalist was chosen by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in an effort to improve press relations at a time when the administration is under pressure to show progress in Iraq.


Morrell’s title will be a deputy assistant secretary of Defense. His functions will be as Pentagon press secretary and Gates’ personal spokesman.

After joining ABC News in Chicago in 2000, Morrell covered the next two presidential elections, the Florida recount and the Iraq war from U.S. Central Command in Qatar, according to his network biography.

A Washington native, Morrell graduated from Georgetown University and received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.