Look how much feds pay to monitor media ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's monitoring of how the media reports on the U.S. Department of State is about to cost taxpayers $173,000 – and that's just for one year, WND has discovered.

What's more, the department didn't open up this "news clip service" procurement contract to competitive bidding – and it has blacked out portions of a document explaining the no-bid contract.

According to a partially redacted "Justification & Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition," or JOFOC, document that WND located via routine database research, "no other supplies or service will satisfy agency requirements."

The value of the contract is blacked out on the document – even though the State Department separately posted the cost of the contract award, #SAQMMA12C0174, on the FedBizOpps system.

The discovery comes at a time when the department separately is planning to buy and distribute its own "media" packages worldwide. As WND reported, the Obama administration appears to be creating what is tantamount to its own propaganda ministry by soliciting the help of "global news coverage service providers" to create and disseminate department "news."

On June 28, the department awarded the sole-source noncompetitive contract to the Reston, Va.-based BulletinNews, which describes itself as "a quiet leader in delivering customized business and political intelligence each day to over one million professional, corporate and government decision makers."

The JOFOC document WND located explained that "given the time constraints and the threat of a break in service," the State Department was unable to conduct a market survey of other potential providers. It failed to explain, however, why it did not carry out a market survey prior to the June 8 expiration of its last contract with the company. (The partly redacted award document said that the last contract — #SAQMPD06C0027 — awarded to Bulletin News had been slated to expire June 8; however, after conducting multiple database searches under that specific award number as well as using various keyword-specific searches, no record of a contract award was found.)

Instead, the State Department waited until June 25 to release a "Sources Sought" notice to potential providers.

Despite this claim, the department nearly nine months earlier – on Sept. 7, 2012 – released a similarly worded solicitation for "Web-Based Digital News Clip" services.

Just 15 days later, it canceled the procurement without explanation.

Aditionally, the State Department on Sept. 17, 2010, issued a solicitation, #1022030067, for "Web-Based Digital News Clip Distribution Services." Although the department immediately opened up the procurement to competitors for four days via FedBid.com, no record of subsequent awards under that procurement number could be located.

An exhaustive search of FedBizOpps — where federal entities are required to post contract award notices — produced zero results. A link from that site back to FedBid simply led to a password-protected page.

The State Department further justified the recent no-bid contract by claiming Bulletin News provides it with a "dedicated account manager who is expert on State and its needs" and is available around the clock.

The next five lines accompanying that justification, however, were blacked out. Immediately following the redacted portions of the text, the State Department explained that the company provides "identical work for the White House and also 20 federal departments and agencies …"

On its website, BulletinNews notes, "The company has never lost in federal competitive bidding and is also frequently awarded sole-source contracts based on the fact no vendor offers similar services."

The company founder and chairman, Paul Roellig, is a former White House aide who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Included among the criteria that no other provider can meet as adequately as Bulletin News is the extent to which the company "uses human analysts to find and review articles and broadcasts from major newspapers, national television and cable news, newsweeklies, relevant magazines and journals, internet sites, specialty press, etc."

Its ability to determine "which aspects of stories are important to various constituencies within the Department [and to] edit out all information that is redundant and irrelevant and weave the important information together into a summary" also was a consideration.

The purpose of this service, according to the Performance Work Statement, is to "monitor print publications, broadcast news and other electronic sources, including the Internet, to analyze stories of foreign policy interest and deliver to the Department summary briefings derived from that information."

The State Department's Bureau of Public Affairs said in the document that the outsourcing of this function helps it to accomplish its mission of disseminating and communicating "information relative to U.S. foreign policy objectives and interests."

To achieve that mission, "it is essential that the Bureau keep abreast of, and bring to the attention of diplomats worldwide, national news events and issues related to foreign affairs, international relations, and other topics.

"Experience shows that this is best accomplished by outsourcing the creation of a series of expert-edited summary briefings that weave together only the most the important elements of relevant news stories, highlighting reporting that Department officials themselves would have identified as important.

The new six-month base "bridge" contract runs until December, continuing with a six-month option – which the State Department already plans to exercise – through June 2013.