Let’s not dance around it. Military.com is getting stripped for parts.

The veterans’ news site that once punched above its weight—covering Capitol Hill idiocy, Pentagon boondoggles, and VA screwups with equal grit—is now being hollowed out like a gutted deer, all under the careful scalpel of a company that made its fortune slinging porn and churning out clickbait.

That company is called Valnet. And they’ve turned a newsroom into a content mill faster than you can say contractor layoffs.

Military.com was never supposed to be just another content site. For decades, it’s been a go-to source for real military news, a watchdog over policy, and a trusted lifeline for service members, veterans, and families trying to navigate the slow, complex, and often unforgiving machinery of defense life. But now it’s bleeding from within—gutted by layoffs, drained of seasoned journalists, and reshaped by a private company that built its empire not on public service journalism, but on traffic metrics and adult entertainment.

Let that sink in.

Valnet isn’t a legacy newsroom. It’s a profit engine. A portfolio company that churns out web content across entertainment, gaming, tech, and lifestyle verticals. They own Screen Rant, Collider, Game Rant, TheGamer, and dozens more. Their model? Buy niche outlets, gut the overhead, replace seasoned reporters with freelancers, and crank out as much SEO-optimized content as possible. The faster, the cheaper, the better.

Oh, and before they got into news, they built Brazzers—a massive porn empire. Yep, that’s the pedigree. From XXX videos to VA coverage.

Hell of a résumé.

The Journalists Are Leaving—And That Matters

In the weeks following Valnet’s takeover, a wave of layoffs, buyouts, and resignations swept the newsroom. Among the most recent are some of the most respected voices in defense journalism:

  • Travis Tritten, a veteran reporter with deep connections on Capitol Hill and a track record for holding senior defense leaders to account.

  • Zachary Fryer-Biggs, whose in-depth investigations exposed the real impact of defense policy on troops and contractors alike.

These aren’t just staffing changes. They’re cultural amputations. They represent the loss of institutional memory, trusted sourcing, and editorial courage. Their departure leaves holes in the newsroom that can’t be filled by outsourced freelancers or search-engine-savvy contributors who’ve never set foot on a base.

Editor’s Note:
The Military Report acknowledges the profound contributions of Travis Tritten and Zachary Fryer-Biggs to military journalism. Their work has helped hold power to account, inform the military community, and bring clarity to complex issues. Their absence is more than a personnel shift—it’s a rupture in the very identity of Military.com.

Valnet’s Business Model? Simple:

Step Translation
Buy respected niche site Inherit audience and reputation
Fire seasoned journalists Save money and kill the soul
Hire cut-rate freelancers Crank out content for peanuts
Prioritize SEO and clicks Forget depth, nuance, or fact-checking
Gut oversight Hope nobody notices until it’s too late

This isn’t innovation. It’s cannibalism with a business plan.

Why It Matters

When Military.com worked, it worked because veterans trusted it. Active-duty families trusted it. Hill staffers read it. Pentagon officials squirmed under its spotlight.

It told the truth about burn pits before the brass admitted it. It asked why troops were still using WWII-era barracks toilets while contractors bought second homes.

That kind of reporting takes time. It takes memory. It takes people who know the difference between a seabag and a boondoggle.

Now? You’ll be lucky to get a listicle about “5 Great MRE Recipes You Didn’t Know Existed.”

This Ain’t Just a Staff Shakeup

It’s a red wedding. And the readers are the ones left holding the bag.

You lose guys like Tritten and Fryer-Biggs, you lose the spine of the operation. What you’re left with is a nameplate and a bunch of rewrites from people who couldn’t pick a POG from a grunt with two hands and a glossary.

Valnet didn’t just fire reporters—they fired the reason people read Military.com in the first place.

A Word to the New Owners

Let’s spell this out.

Veterans don’t want fluff. They don’t want ads posing as reporting. And they sure as hell don’t want stories written by someone Googling “What is a DD-214?”

You bought a trusted institution. Treat it like one. Or sell it to someone who will.

Because if the only thing left is a shell website with no real news, no truth, and no guts—then you didn’t just ruin a brand.

You dishonored a service.

Final Shot

To the folks who got laid off or walked out with their heads high—respect. You did the job. You told the truth. And we noticed.

To the readers: don’t accept this decline as normal. Demand better. From your news, from your media, and from anyone who claims to speak for the military community.

Military.com was once a cornerstone of military media. Now it risks becoming just another traffic farm—its legacy buried under pop-ups and outsourced rewrites.

This didn’t have to happen. But it’s happening now. And unless there’s a course correction, the loss will be permanent—and irreplaceable.