Stars and Stripes reports that the U.S. military is terminating a $1.5 million contract with The Rendon Group, a private firm that produced background profiles of reporters who requested military embed access in Afghanistan.
The firm graded journalists' past work as "positive," "negative" or "neutral." Military officials were presumed to be granting access to those whose profiles indicated they'd yield a future "positive" spin on reports from the battleground. Snip:
Military terminates Rendon contract (Stars and Stripes, via Poynter/Romenesko)The Bagram Regional Contracting Center intends to execute a termination of the Media Analyst contract," belonging to The Rendon Group, said Col. Wayne Shanks, chief of public affairs for International Security Assistance Forces-Afghanistan.
The announcement follows a week of revelations by Stars and Stripes in which military public affairs officers who served in Afghanistan said that as recently as 2008 they had used reporter profiles compiled by The Rendon Group, a private public relations firm in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to grant permission to embed with troops on the battlefield.
Also: Read what the Rendon Group has to say about the matter: TRG Comment on Recent Reporting About Our Work in Afghanistan.
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bit late now
I'm sure there are plenty of Bush-era projects that are still in effect. It will take a bit to weed them out, but it's so ironic that the "constitution" party is so unconstitutional.
Yeah, positiveness. As in, how well did they lie to the American people about what's happening in the Middle East. Sickening world we live in. Being a journalist in this area is either completely soul-crushing, or like being part of a psychopathic fraternity.
I've read that Rendon Group press release from beginning to end and I still don't know what they are trying to say.
It seems like they are saying the army misunderstood what they meant by 'positive', 'negative' and 'neutral' or, to put it another way, their reports were misleading and confusing - and that's their positive spin!
Rendon's theme song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPI2Ppq4pic
Abso-positively....
Rendon is well-known as a hit-piece generator, I'm sure they're fully aware of this eventuality and placed a phat termination clause in the contract. They probably make more by getting canceled than having the contract run its course.