WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. military in Afghanistan defended itself yesterday against accusations that a company it employs was rating the work of reporters and suggesting ways to make their war coverage more positive.
Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for U.S. troops, said it had obtained documents prepared for the U.S. military by the Rendon Group, a Washington-based communications firm that graded journalists’ work as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative”.
The newspaper, partly funded by the Pentagon but editorially independent, said the journalists’ profiles included suggestions on how to “neutralize” negative stories and generate favourable coverage.
It published a pie chart which it said came from a Rendon report on the coverage of a reporter for an unidentified major U.S. newspaper until mid-May, judging it to be 83.33 percent neutral and 16.67 percent negative with respect to the military’s goals.
