The Pentagon distanced itself from the practices revealed by the newspaper Stars and Stripes.

"A tool like this serves no purpose and for me doesn't provide any value," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. "As I've said before, the metric we use at the Department of Defense to rate a story is based on whether or not the story is accurate."

US forces in Afghanistan acknowledged in a statement that it uses public relations group Rendon for "several analytic reports, to include characterization of specific topical stories/events as positive, negative or neutral, as well as whether media reporting is an accurate portrayal of the facts as we know them."

"These reports do not 'rate' reporters or news outlets themselves, nor do we keep any reports on individual reporters other than personal information used in the accreditation process, i.e. name, passport or ID number, media outlet, etc....," a military statement said.

Stars and Stripes, a publication funded by the Pentagon but with an independent editorial mandate, said the files on journalists were aimed at determining how to influence their reporting while embedded with a military unit.

"We have used background information, which typically includes basic biographical information about the reporter and a snapshot of what they have been covering recently, to prepare leaders for interviews as any public affairs office might prepare for any media engagement," the army said.

But it said the army "has never denied access to any reporter based upon their past stories."

The news comes against the backdrop of an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. A recent survey found that 51 percent of those Americans surveyed did not believe the war was worth fighting.

earlier related report
Pentagon profiling Afghan embed journalists: report
The Pentagon has hired a private firm to investigate reporters seeking to embed with US troops in Afghanistan in order to find out how best to influence their coverage, a report said Wednesday.

Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper partly funded by the Pentagon but editorially independent, said private contractors had been brought in by the US Defense Department to evaluate journalists.

The Rendon Group rates reporters' previous work as "positive," "negative" or "neutral," and offers advice on how their coverage might be influenced, the report said.

One file on a journalist seen by Stars and Stripes 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."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman insisted that the Defense Department does not rate journalists based on the favorability of their coverage.

"We are not doing that here," he told AFP.

On Monday, in response to a first, less detailed Stars and Stripes article about the program, Whitman said: "I can tell you that the way in which the Department of Defense evaluates an article is its accuracy."

"It's a good article if it's accurate. It's a bad article if it's inaccurate. That's the only measurement that we use here," he told the newspaper.

The report comes as Washington worries about the increasing unpopularity of the war in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban is inflicting rising casualties on US and coalition troops.

According to a recent poll, 51 percent of Americans now say the war is not worth fighting.

The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Wednesday condemned the military's practices and said such embed screening "strips away any pretence that the army is interested in helping journalists to work freely."

"This profiling of journalists further compromises the independence of media," IFJ general secretary Aidan White said in a statement.

"Bringing democracy to Afghanistan is a massive challenge," he added. "But it will not be made easier by trying to manipulate media or encouraging journalists to show bias in favor of the military."

Journalists have interacted with military personnel in various forms for centuries, but the practice of attaching a news reporter or photographer to a military unit in a war zone gained traction in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Supporters have argued it gives an immediacy to news coverage and allows reporters to get close to the action.

Critics say embedding leads journalists to sympathize with the forces they cover, and that the process does little to improve unbiased reporting in the field because journalists are routinely required to sign contracts restricting what they can report on.

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