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Has CNN International sold out to Bahrain King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa ..... among others?

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 09/06/2012 - 13:14

 

The following 14 minute or so segment is taken from an hour ... ish piece done by Amber Lyon among others while in the employ of CNN on the "Arab Spring" protests that took place in Bahrain during the spring of 2011.
 

If you think you're interested you probably need to watch it now as I don't expect it to stay up very much longer.

 

 

CNN International is being accused of having sold it's independence to some number of repressive governments across the African continent and western Asia, most notably in this instance, Bahrain.

The following excerpts were taken from a Glenn Greenwald article and blog piece at The Gaurdian UK.

We would encourage everyone to read both even though they are both quite long.  A written response from CNNI is linked to at the bottom of both pieces.

 

Why didn't CNN's international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain's Arab Spring repression?

A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network

A Bahraini protester in Manama. Photograph: Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty Images

In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay in that small, US-backed kingdom.

By the time the CNN crew arrived, many of the sources who had agreed to speak to them were either in hiding or had disappeared. Regime opponents whom they interviewed suffered recriminations, as did ordinary citizens who worked with them as fixers. Leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. A doctor who gave the crew a tour of his village and arranged meetings with government opponents, Saeed Ayyad, had his house burned to the ground shortly after. Their local fixer was fired ten days after working with them.

The CNN crew itself was violently detained by regime agents in front of Rajab's house. As they described it after returning to the US, "20 heavily-armed men", whose faces were "covered with black ski masks", "jumped from military vehicles", and then "pointed machine guns at" the journalists, forcing them to the ground. The regime's security forces seized their cameras and deleted their photos and video footage, and then detained and interrogated them for the next six hours.

In the segment, Lyon interviewed activists as they explicitly described their torture at the hands of government forces, while family members recounted their relatives' abrupt disappearances. She spoke with government officials justifying the imprisonment of activists. And the segment featured harrowing video footage of regime forces shooting unarmed demonstrators, along with the mass arrests of peaceful protesters. In sum, the early 2011 CNN segment on Bahrain presented one of the starkest reports to date of the brutal repression embraced by the US-backed regime.

On 19 June 2011 at 8pm, CNN's domestic outlet in the US aired "iRevolution" for the first and only time. The program received prestigious journalism awards, including a 2012 Gold Medal from New York Festival's Best TV and Films. Lyon, along with her segment producer Taryn Fixel, were named as finalists for the 2011 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. A Facebook page created by Bahraini activists, entitled "Thank you Amber Lyon, CNN reporter | From people of Bahrain", received more than 8,000 "likes".

Despite these accolades, and despite the dangers their own journalists and their sources endured to produce it, CNN International (CNNi) never broadcast the documentary. Even in the face of numerous inquiries and complaints from their own employees inside CNN, it continued to refuse to broadcast the program or even provide any explanation for the decision. To date, this documentary has never aired on CNNi.

It is CNN International that is, by far, the most-watched English-speaking news outlet in the Middle East. By refusing to broadcast "iRevolution", the network's executives ensured it was never seen on television by Bahrainis or anyone else in the region.

CNNi's refusal to broadcast "iRevolution" soon took on the status of a mini-scandal among its producers and reporters, who began pushing Lyon to speak up about this decision. In June 2011, one long-time CNN news executive emailed Lyon:

"Why would CNNi not run a documentary on the Arab Spring, arguably the the biggest story of the decade? Strange, no?"

Motivated by the concerns expressed by long-time CNN journalists, Lyon requested a meeting with CNNi's president, Tony Maddox, to discuss the refusal to broadcast the documentary. On 24 June 2011, she met with Maddox, who vowed to find out and advise her of the reasons for its non-airing. He never did.

In a second meeting with Maddox, which she had requested in early December to follow up on her unanswered inquiry, Lyon was still given no answers. Instead, at that meeting, Maddox, according to Lyon, went on the offense, sternly warning her not to speak publicly about this matter. Several times, Maddox questioned her about this 18 November 2011 tweet by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, demanding to know what prompted it:

In response, according to both the above-cited CNN employee and Lyon, the regime's press officers complained repeatedly to CNNi about Lyon generally and specifically her reporting for "iRevolution". In April, a senior producer emailed her to say:

"We are dealing with blowback from Bahrain govt on how we violated our mission, etc."

"It became a standard joke around the office: the Bahrainis called to complain about you again," recounted Lyon. Lyon was also told by CNN employees stationed in the region that "the Bahrainis also sent delegations to our Abu Dhabi bureau to discuss the coverage."

Internal CNN emails reflect continuous pressure on Lyon and others to include claims from the Bahraini regime about the violence in their country – even when, says Lyon, she knew first-hand that the claims were false. One April 2011 email to Lyon from a CNN producer demands that she include in her documentary a line stating that "Bahrain's foreign minister says security forces are not firing on unarmed civilians," and another line describing regime claims accusing "activists like Nabeel Rajab of doctoring photos … fabricating injuries".

Having just returned from Bahrain, Lyon says she "saw first-hand that these regime claims were lies, and I couldn't believe CNN was making me put what I knew to be government lies into my reporting."

As negative news stories of its brutal repression grew in the wake of the Arab Spring, the regime undertook a massive, very well-funded PR campaign to improve its image. As reported by Bahrain Watch, the regime has spent more than $32m in PR fees alone since the commencement of the Arab Spring in February, 2011, including payments to some of Washington, DC's most well-connected firms and long-time political operatives, such as former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.

One of the largest contracts the regime had was with the DC-based PR firm Qorvis Communications. As Time reported last November, the firm, which also does extensive PR work for Bahrain's close allies, the Saudi regime, "has a branch dedicated to rehabilitating the reputation of unsavory governments, a niche practice that has seen great demand in the wake of the Arab spring".

Qorvis often led the way in complaining to CNNi about its Bahrain coverage. An internal email from CNN at the beginning of 2012, seen by the Guardian, records the firm's calling to complain about excessively favorable mentions of Nabeel Rajab, who had been arrested and charged over an anti-regime tweet, and was just this month sentenced to three years in prison for an "illegal demonstration".

The long-time CNN employee said that "iRevolution" was vetted far more heavily than the typical documentary:

"Because Amber was relatively new in reporting on the region, and especially because of the vocal complaints from the Bahrainis, the documentary was heavily scrutinized. But nobody could ever point to anything factually or journalistically questionable in Amber's reporting on Bahrain."

In response to several inquiries, Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority refused to say whether they had complained to CNNi about Lyon and "iRevolution". A spokesman, Fahad A AlBinali, instead offered only a generic statement that "on occasion we contact media outlets to provide correct information or a balanced view of the subject," and, he claimed, when doing so, they are simply trying "to help ensure that coverage of Bahrain is accurate and unbiased". Subsequent attempts to obtain specific answers from the authority about the regime's complaints to CNNi about "iRevolution" and Lyon went unanswered.

After Lyon's crew returned from Bahrain, CNN had no correspondents regularly reporting on the escalating violence. In emails to her producers and executives, Lyon repeatedly asked to return to Bahrain. Her requests were denied, and she was never sent back. She thus resorted to improvising coverage by interviewing activists via Skype in an attempt, she said, "to keep Bahrain in the news".

In March 2012, Lyon was laid off from CNN as part of an unrelated move by the network to outsource its investigative documentaries. Now at work on a book, Lyon began in August to make reference to "iRevolution" on her Twitter account, followed by more than 20,000 people.

On 16 August, Lyon wrote three tweets about this episode. CNNi's refusal to broadcast "iRevolution", she wrote, "baffled producers". Linking to the YouTube clip of the Bahrain segment, she added that the "censorship was devastating to my crew and activists who risked lives to tell [the] story." She posted a picture of herself with Rajab and wrote:

"A proponent of peace, @nabeelrajab risked his safety to show me how the regime oppresses the [people] of #Bahrain."

The following day, a representative of CNN's business affairs office called Lyon's acting agent, George Arquilla of Octagon Entertainment, and threatened that her severance payments and insurance benefits would be immediately terminated if she ever again spoke publicly about this matter, or spoke negatively about CNN.

When I asked CNN specifically about this alleged threat delivered to Lyon's agent, the company declined to confirm or deny it, commenting:

"In common with other companies we do not discuss internal personnel matters."

Responding to Lyon's charge of censorship, CNN's spokesman replied:

"CNN International has a proud record of courageous, independent and honest reporting from around the world. Any suggestion that the network's relationship with any country has influenced our reporting is wholly and demonstrably wrong."

It is true that CNNi can point to numerous recent reports describing the violence against protesters by the regime in Bahrain. Given the scope of the violence, and how widely it has now been reported elsewhere, it would be virtually impossible for CNNi never to broadcast such reports while still maintaining any claim to credibility. But such reports required far more journalistic courage to air in the first half of 2011, when so few knew of the brutality to which the regime had resorted, than now, when it is widely known. Moreover, CNNi's reports on the violence in Bahrain take a much more muted tone than when it reports on regimes disfavored by the US, such as Iran or Syria.

More importantly, the tidal wave of CNNi's partnerships and associations with the regime in Bahrain, and the hagiography it has broadcast about it (see the accompanying commentary on the relationship between the network and the regime), appear to have overwhelmed any truly critical coverage.

recent critique from the Atlantic's website of the network's "Eye on Kazakhstan" series noted that "there are some unusual things going on with CNN International's Kazakhstan series" but "you'd have to know the country pretty well to spot them."

CNN's "sponsorship policy", which bears a date after this controversy arose over its rosy-eyed "Eye On" program about Kazakhstan, states that:

"'[P]arts of CNN's coverage beyond the daily news are produced as Special Reports, which attract sponsors who pay to associate their products or services with the editorial content,' but claims that 'at no stage do the sponsors have a say in which stories CNN covers.'"

Even so, CNNi's editorial conduct toward Bahrain, combined with its aggressive pursuit of money from the regime, raises serious questions about its ability, or desire, to maintain journalistic independence.

At the same time as CNN was covering the regime, Bahrain was an aggressive participant in CNN's various "sponsorship" opportunities, with official agencies of the regime often boasting of how their extensive involvement with CNN was improving the nation's image around the world. Beyond that, there are multiple examples of CNN International producing plainly propagandistic coverage of the regime, often without any minimal disclosure of the vested interests of its sources.

The primary regime agency exploiting these opportunities at CNNi is the Bahrain Economic Development Board (BEDB). It describes itself as "responsible for marketing the Kingdom of Bahrain abroad". The agency is chaired by "His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince".

 

The following comments were taken from Glenn Greenwald's blog and expand on the subject of CNN's "sponsorship arrangements"

 

CNNi's pursuit of and reliance on revenue from Middle East regimes increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, which caused the network to suffer significant losses in corporate sponsorships. It thus pursued all-new, journalistically dubious ways to earn revenue from governments around the world. Bahrain has been one of the most aggressive government exploiters of the opportunities presented by CNNi.

These arrangements extend far beyond standard sponsorship agreements for advertising of the type most major media outlets feature. CNNi produces those programs in an arrangement it describes as "in association with" the government of a country, and offers regimes the ability to pay for specific programs about their country. These programs are then featured as part of CNNi's so-called "Eye on" series ("Eye on Georgia", "Eye on the Phillipines", "Eye on Poland"), or "Marketplace Middle East", all of which is designed to tout the positive economic, social and political features of that country.

The disclosure for such arrangements is often barely visible. This year, for instance, CNNi produced an "Eye on Lebanon" series, which thatnation's tourist minister boasted was intended "to market Lebanon as a tourism destination". He said "his ministry was planning a large promotional campaign dubbed 'Eye on Lebanon' to feature on CNN network."

Yet one strains to find the faded, small disclosure print on this "Eye on Lebanon" page, even if one is specifically searching for it. To the average viewer unaware of these government sponsorships, it appears to be standard "reporting" from the network.

recent critique from the Atlantic's website of the network's "Eye on Kazakhstan" series noted that "there are some unusual things going on with CNN International's Kazakhstan series" but "you'd have to know the country pretty well to spot them."

CNN's "sponsorship policy", which bears a date after this controversy arose over its rosy-eyed "Eye On" program about Kazakhstan, states that:

"'[P]arts of CNN's coverage beyond the daily news are produced as Special Reports, which attract sponsors who pay to associate their products or services with the editorial content,' but claims that 'at no stage do the sponsors have a say in which stories CNN covers.'"

Even so, CNNi's editorial conduct toward Bahrain, combined with its aggressive pursuit of money from the regime, raises serious questions about its ability, or desire, to maintain journalistic independence.

At the same time as CNN was covering the regime, Bahrain was an aggressive participant in CNN's various "sponsorship" opportunities, with official agencies of the regime often boasting of how their extensive involvement with CNN was improving the nation's image around the world. Beyond that, there are multiple examples of CNN International producing plainly propagandistic coverage of the regime, often without any minimal disclosure of the vested interests of its sources.

The primary regime agency exploiting these opportunities at CNNi is the Bahrain Economic Development Board (BEDB). It describes itself as "responsible for marketing the Kingdom of Bahrain abroad". The agency is chaired by "His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince".

 

Finally, here's some additional news concerning Bahrain via Pakistan's Let Us Build Pakistan news blog.

 

Overseas Employment Services: Fauji Foundation headhunts for Bahrain’s security units

By Saba Imtiaz

The Overseas Employment Services (OES) of the Fauji Foundation is recruiting hundreds of ex-servicemen to serve in the Bahrain National Guard (BNG).

Advertisements in an Urdu language daily and on the OES website state that the BNG “immediately” requires people with experience and qualifications as anti-riot instructors and security guards.

While an official at the Fauji Foundation said there were 800 vacancies and 6,000-7,000 applications had been received, another at the OES said there were 200 to 300 vacancies and a number of people had been selected.

The advertisement states that a BNG delegation is visiting Pakistan from March 7 to March 14 to recruit people from the following categories: officers (majors), Pakistan Military Academy drill instructors, anti-riot instructors, security guards, and military police as well as cooks and mess waiters. Civilians were required as security guards, while the rest of the categories required experience in the military or security forces. The requirement for anti-riot instructors was NCOs (non-commissioned officers) from the Sindh Rangers or officers of an equivalent rank from the Elite Police Force.

The official at the OES also said that Bahrain’s army had recently recruited ex-servicemen from Pakistan. In December, the OES advertised positions for retired Pakistan Army doctors to serve in the King’s Guard.

The Fauji Foundation was set up in 1954 and serves as a trust for ex-servicemen and their families. It is believed to be among the largest industrial conglomerates in the country.

 

We'll be honest with you here.

We're posting these articles because they fit quite comfortably into our notion that all the big media players have been bought and sold and cannot under any circumstances be trusted to report anything other than their master's spin.

 

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