“Some good news from Afghanistan is that American commanders have wisely canceled a contract with a public relations firm accused of profiling correspondents with negative-to-positive ratings to help determine whether they may report in the war zone with troops,” said a New York Times editorial. It cites a military newspaper report that profiles “were used in barring access to two correspondents who had fallen out of favor and in steering others away from negative reporting.”

Given the scarcity of good news, another crumb is that the rating contract saw the light of day.