"Perception Management" or Propaganda?

The Rolling Stone reports on The Rendon Group and its efforts to influence policy in hot spots around the world.

The Rendon Group responds here.

The Chicago Tribune has an article on "how the firm molds news" as the Pentagon wages a "war of images and words."

Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records concerning Pentagon funded programs engaged in "strategic influence, perception management, strategic information warfare and/or strategic psychological operations" through media consultants, think tanks, foreign expatriate political organizations, and Internet sites. The Rendon Group is mentioned specifically. Judicial Watch reminds us in the linked press release:

The Smith-Mundt Actof 1948 (22 U.S.C.' 1461), forbids the domestic dissemination of U.S. government authored propoganda or "official news" deliberately designed to influence public opinion or policy. The Pentagon has made aggressive use of various information warfare techniques, developing new programs and hiring outside media consultants in executing their various missions in the Global War on Terror.