Then on Monday, Stars and Stripes reported that the Pentagon contracted the Rendon Group — a public relations firm that had made millions from the CIA by “creat[ing] the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power” in the media, according to an award-winning Rolling Stone profile — to vet embed-seeking journalists for “positive,” “negative” or “neutral” coverage according to “mission objectives.” For any media organization that can’t afford the several thousand dollars every day for security and transportation in war zones — most of them, basically — that’s, uh, problematic. I’ve embedded in both Iraq and Afghanistan. There were many places in both countries where unembedded reporting by American journalists is a life-or-death gamble.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan told the paper that the only vetting that takes place isn’t for utility to the war effort but for responsibility. “If it’s accurate, that’s a successful news story, whether good or bad,” Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said. But today the paper quoted new documents from Rendon showing that not only does the vetting take place, but so does a discussion of strategies to manipulate reporters:

One reporter on the staff of one of America’s pre-eminent newspapers is rated in a Pentagon report as “neutral to positive” in his coverage of the U.S. military. Any negative stories he writes “could possibly be neutralized” by feeding him mitigating quotes from military officials.

Another reporter, from a TV station, provides coverage from a “subjective angle,” according to his Pentagon profile. Steering him toward covering “the positive work of a successful operation” could “result in favorable coverage.”

To some degree, it’s hard to get exercised by the fact that public-affairs officers try to sway journalists’ coverage. Shocking, I tell you! But denying that it occurs at all is bizarre, and the question becomes whether certain journalists are denied their embeds based on the effort. One Stars and Stripes reporter, Heath Druzen, was kicked out of an embed in Iraq earlier this year after Druzen didn’t highlight developments that the brigade he was with wanted highlighted.

Then there’s this clever bit of argumentative jujitsu:

In a statement e-mailed to Stars and Stripes, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, director of communications for the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, wrote: “To imply journalists embedded with our forces only serve to highlight positive aspects of our mission slights the professional journalists who regularly embed with our forces and report what they experience, both good and bad.”

Somehow it doesn’t seem plausible to argue that Stars and Stripes is slandering its colleagues who make it past a questionable embed vetting process. Will Stars and Stripes, a paper available in most every dining hall in Iraq and Afghanistan, be denied further embeds?

Reeducation through labor, primarily through sentences at forced labor camps, was a common punishment and consisted of tasks such as logging, mining, or tending crops under harsh conditions. Reeducation involved memorizing speeches by Kim Jong-il. …

NGO, refugee, and press reports indicated that there were several types of prisons, detention centers, and camps, including forced labor camps and separate camps for political prisoners. Defectors claimed the camps covered areas as large as 200 square miles. The camps appeared to contain mass graves, barracks, worksites, and other prison facilities.

Conditions in camps for political prisoners are even harsher and feature such pleasantries as “prolonged periods of exposure to the elements; humiliations such as public nakedness; confinement for up to several weeks in small ‘punishment cells’ in which prisoners were unable to stand upright or lie down; being forced to kneel or sit immobilized for long periods; being hung by the wrists; being forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse.” Variations on these themes occurred at CIA secret detention facilities, Guantanamo Bay, and, in certain cases, in Afghanistan and Iraq as the result of the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention programs — which, at their root, were modeled on methods taught to U.S. troops to resist torture of the sort practiced by, among others, the North Koreans. So former Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, can’t call what Euna Lee and Laura Ling may face “torture” on pains of inconsistency. Moral clarity in action.

It’s unclear to me if the distinction between conditions in forced-labor camps and conditions in political reeducation camps is an ironclad one.

Meanwhile, what’s gotten somewhat lost in the justified outrage over Lee and Ling’s conviction is the story that took them to the Chinese border with North Korea in the first place: the plight of North Korean women trafficked into China. This is from that same State Department report, and it hints at the importance of Ling and Lee’s reporting:

There were no known laws specifically addressing the problem of trafficking in persons, and trafficking of women and young girls into and within China continued to be widely reported. Some North Korean women and girls who voluntarily crossed into China were picked up by trafficking rings and sold as brides to Chinese nationals or placed in forced labor. In other cases, North Korean women and girls were lured out of North Korea by the promise of food, jobs, and freedom, only to be forced into prostitution, marriage, or exploitive labor arrangements. A network of smugglers facilitated this trafficking. Many victims of trafficking, unable to speak Chinese, were held as virtual prisoners, and some were forced to work as prostitutes. Traffickers sometimes abused or physically scarred the victims to prevent them from escaping. Officials facilitated trafficking by accepting bribes to allow individuals to cross the border into China.

A different State Department report, this one about human trafficking, found that when the Chinese government obtains women smuggled into the country from North Korea, it treats them “solely as economic migrants” and routinely repatriates them “back to horrendous conditions.”

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Influence comes in many forms. Often, influencing the influencers is a smart strategy. Free food never hurts, either.

The head of public relations for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer makes free food a centerpiece of his “tips for managing journalists” an industry conference, Advertising Age reports.

In this video clip, Pfizer’s global public relations chief Ray Kerins explains his strategy for working with journalists, whose coverage, in the words of Advertising Age,”so heavily impacts the pharmaceutical giant’s reputation.” Kerins says:

“…[T]omorrow, we’re hosting a lunch with the communications team for Linda Johnson, who’s one of the top health care folks at the Associated Press. She’s outstanding, she’s brilliant we love her to death. But we’re bringing her into our home and we’re saying, look, here’s who we are and here’s what we’re talking about. She’s not meeting with executives, she’s meeting with communications, with my folks on the media team. We do this about every other week.”

Johnson won’t be the first journalist to be feted at Pfizer. Kerins estimates that his team met with about 115 journalists in 2008, on and off-site.

No doubt it’s a good investment for Pfizer. Critical media coverage can cost a drug company billions in lost sales, diminished good will, and even legal and political scrutiny. Stories with headlines like “Maker of Vioxx Accused of Deception” hurt Merck’s bottom line.

Kerins claims that that his team has “no agenda” when journalists are made honored guests at corporate headquarters. But, as someone who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, writing ad copy for various well-known brands including some of Pfizer’s products, I can categorically say “Yeah, right.” He may not be pitching specific stories, but he’s almost certainly mounting a charm offensive.

The pharmaceutical industry is perhaps second only to Hollywood in the economic emphasis placed on lunch. A couple advertising agencies where I worked did a brisk business designing customized boxes for bagels served at so-called “Lunch and Learns”–promotional events where company representatives, or scientists hand-picked by the company, tried to woo doctors into prescribing the latest ACE inhibitor or antidepressant. We’d get memos from the marketing teams explaining how our colorful bagel boxes, emblazoned with company logos and drug tag lines, reinforced the key sales messages of the lecture.

When big pharma reaches out to influencers, such as doctors and journalists, its always couched in terms of education — but Merck is not an educational institution. It sells drugs.

Ironically, a lot of the worst press big pharma has gotten in recent years centered on the companies’ shameless attempts to ingratiate themselves with physicians through free food, conveniently-packaged information, and flattery. Apparently, Pfizer has decided that the cure for bad press is to offer journalists similar perks.