Military Drops Rendon Contract

Stars and Stripes reported yesterday that the US military has fired The Rendon Group. Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith told the paper that “The decision to terminate the Rendon contract was mine and mine alone. As the senior U.S. communicator in Afghanistan, it was clear that the issue of Rendon’s support to US forces in Afghanistan had become a distraction from our main mission.”

The decision comes after S&S and Afghan Desk told the world what every Kabul journo already knows: The military hired Rendon to evaluate the work of reporters applying for embeds. Rendon classified reporters’ attitudes toward the military as “negative,” “neutral” or “positive.” The military then used the analysis to determine where an embedded journalist would be placed.

It was also revealed over the weekend that in at least two cases, the Army used Rendon’s reports to determine whether a reporter would even be allowed to embed at all.  (That last link goes to a S&S story that cites Afghan Desk and this author by name.)

The Rendon contract was for $1.5 million, puny by military standards. It’s surprising that they would fire Rendon so quickly, considering how important the program was/is to commanders on the ground. More than once, I’ve shown up on some far-flung base downrange and been shocked at how familiar commanding officers are with my work. I always knew why, but also thought that it made our working relationship a little bit easier from the start.

Later this morning I’ll post more opinion about this development, but I just wanted to get the news out there for now.