The 92,000 Afghan war documents released by Wikileaks include evidence that the US military has been paying local media outlets to run friendly stories, Yahoo! News in the US reports.
Senior blogger for the site John Cook says: “Several reports from Army psychological operations units and provincial reconstruction teams (also known as PRTs, civilian-military hybrids tasked with rebuilding Afghanistan) show that local Afghan radio stations were under contract to air content produced by the United States.
“Other reports show US military personnel apparently referring to Afghan reporters as ‘our journalists’ and directing them in how to do their jobs.”
He points out that in 2005 Pentagon contractor, the Lincoln Group, paid Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by American soldiers.
The Times in London today claimed that the Wikileaks release has put Afghan lives at risk by naming individuals who have helped the US-led coalition forces.
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