Pentagon caught lying about journalist profiling!
WASHINGTON - August 27, 2009 - The official newspaper for the Armed Forces has caught Pentagon officials spreading disinformation regarding reports on how they have allowed a private contractor to rate and profile embedded journalists.
As Raw Story reported on Monday, a public relations firm that organized the opposition to Saddam Hussein during the 1990s and coerced journalists during the run-up to the Iraq war is now vetting at least some embedded journalists in war zones to keep out those who have a history of writing negative stories about the U.S. military.
“Any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress,” the military newspaper Stars & Stripes reported Monday.
The military journal partly funded by the Pentagon but editorially independent, is now reporting in a follow-up story, “Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as ‘positive,’ ‘neutral’ or ‘negative.’”
One file on a journalist, who is on “the staff of one of America’s pre-eminent newspapers” describes his coverage as “neutral to positive,” but adds that negative stories “could possibly be neutralized” if he were given quotes from military officials.
Another file describes a television reporter as taking a “subjective angle,” but advises that steering him towards “the positive work of a successful operation” could “result in favorable coverage.”
As Raw Story reported on Monday, a public relations firm that organized the opposition to Saddam Hussein during the 1990s and coerced journalists during the run-up to the Iraq war is now vetting at least some embedded journalists in war zones to keep out those who have a history of writing negative stories about the U.S. military.
“Any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress,” the military newspaper Stars & Stripes reported Monday.
The military journal partly funded by the Pentagon but editorially independent, is now reporting in a follow-up story, “Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as ‘positive,’ ‘neutral’ or ‘negative.’”
One file on a journalist, who is on “the staff of one of America’s pre-eminent newspapers” describes his coverage as “neutral to positive,” but adds that negative stories “could possibly be neutralized” if he were given quotes from military officials.
Another file describes a television reporter as taking a “subjective angle,” but advises that steering him towards “the positive work of a successful operation” could “result in favorable coverage.”
