The FBI wants to know what's being said about them.
The agency is hiring a contractor to grade news stories written about them as "positive," "neutral," or "negative," reported The Washington Times. But the FBI won't say why the information is needed, or what they are planning to do with it.
FBI officials won't even go into how they will assign the grades, which was laid out in a recent contract solicitation where potential contractors were told to "use their judgment" when scoring news coverage. This would serve as a new "daily news briefing" service that the agency is seeking as part of a contract that could last up to five years, according to The Washington Times.
The move is similar to the effort the Obama administration made to grade media coverage of its response to the BP oil spill, The Washington Times states. A separate defense contract rating the work of reporters was shut down in 2009.
The agency told The Washington Times that its public office needs a contractor to help monitor "breaking news, editorials, long-form journalism projects and the larger public conversation about law enforcement."
But, Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, said that the lack of clear public methods and goals raises "troubling questions."
"You would certainly worry this could affect access," Kennedy told The Washington Times. "It might affect the way they're going to approach your questions, whether they're going to be extra careful not to make news if you're on the 'bad list.'"
Kennedy also stated that journalism can be nuanced and complicated, and can raise questions about what sort of guidance the agency will provide to contractors to fit stories into positive, neutral or negative boxes.
"If you're rigorously fair about it and you're getting the FBI's point of view out there, they would probably write that as a negative story, but it strikes me as neutral," Kennedy told The Washington Times.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance president, David Williams, told The Washington Times that like many agencies, the FBI may want to know what people are saying and writing about them. He also said media-clipping services aren't an unusual use of resources.
But, he did question how rating journalists fits with the agency's core mission of enforcing federal laws, reported The Washington Times.
"It just seems like you're creating a whole other layer of work," said Williams.
FBI officials said in the contract's state of work that the contractor must "characterize the coverage such that FBI officials can quickly get a sense of how widely various story elements were run and also for the general tonality of the coverage," The Washington Times reports.
And, according to The Washington Times, this is not the first time the Obama administration has sought outside help to decipher media coverage.
In 2011, The Associated Press reported about a $18,000 contract that called for a contractor to assess the "tone" of news stories about the administration's response to the BP oil spill. The AP also noted that past contracts have created problems, too: a 2009 defense contract that graded journalists' work before they embedded with troops was ultimately removed by the Pentagon, wrote The Washington Times.
The decision to eliminate the contract came after the newspaper reported that military officials were using the profiles created by the contractor to help decide whether or not to grant or deny "embed" requests. Under the FBI's contract proposal, the contractor would deliver a news briefing daily through a website using "extremely fresh" content each day, as well as link to media coverage by 7 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Officials stated, "This service shall allow personnel to have better situational awareness, as well as support both proactive and reactive public communications strategies," The Washington Times reported.
Records reportedly show briefing materials will include the date of coverage, tonality, story focus, type of media outlet and "overall impact" of news coverage in chart and graph form. The FBI will also have the right to archive each daily briefing indefinitely.
