CNN Reporter Blows Whistle: CNN Telling Reporters Not to Report on Massacres By Governments Paying for "Sponsored Content" (video)
Lyon also talks about how the Obama Administration abuses the Justice Department to frighten reporters.
Amber Lyon And now CNN is threatening award winning reporter Amber Lyon for blowing the whistle. Those who know journalism know that CNN International is a joke. It is biased and milk-toast government/corporate sponsored news. We have been aware of this for a number of years, but even so, you can imagine our surprise to see one of the biggest names at CNN go public saying just that. She also talks about how the Obama Administration is abusing the "Espionage Act" to go after reporters who report things they don't like. Of course government/corporate sponsored news is nothing new in the elite media:
ABC did a one hour news special in support of ObamaCare and allowed no GOP response or any critique at all from the other side. ABC edited the film "The Path to 9/11" at the insistence of the Clinton's and the Democratic Leadership and refuses to release the film on DVD (LINK - LINK - VIDEO) NBC shut down the show "The Playboy Club" (which was more about Chicago politics than bunnies) under pressure from the White House and is not releasing shows to pay services, CNN admitted it was doing puff pieces for Saddam Hussein and white washing government atrocities in order to keep access. Several countries in the Middle-East pay huge sums to Associated Press for (big scare quotes here) "news content" for their airwaves. The NY Times has admitted that they and others are submitting quotes and content to the White House for editing before it is published. White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal bailout money. Andrea Seabrook left NPR after 14 years "in order to actually do some real journalism" because they had her just reporting spin from certain politicians. The White House launched a profanity laced tirade against CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson for her very responsible coverage of the Justice Department Gun Running Scandal (VIDEO). CBS has now backed off of the story and prevented Atkinson from doing radio interviews for some time after her interview on Laura Ingraham.
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.
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.
So CNN spent $100,000 making this documentary and then refused to air it in spite of Lyon's work earning awards. Then look at the lengths CNN went to to keep the story quiet - continue reading HERE. The Guardian:
CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news
The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial.
Even so, the network's relationships with governments must bear closer examination. CNNi has aggressively pursued a business strategy of extensive, multifaceted financial arrangements between the network and several of the most repressive regimes around the world which the network purports to cover. Its financial dealings with Bahrain are deep and longstanding.
CNNi's pursuit of sponsorship revenue from the world's regimes
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 that nation'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."
Below is a video interview Alex Jones did with Amber Lyon. Now let us be clear - Alex Jones is NOT a reliable source of solid information as half of what he says is exaggerated or worse - with that said, listen to Amber in her own words explain what she witnessed:
[Editor's Note - heaps of respect for Amber Lyon, and even though her eyes are opening she is still naive about a few things. Most of these "pro-democracy" protesters she talks about in the video are not pro-democracy at all, they are Muslim Brotherhood. In 1979 when Carter helped the current regime come to power they were all about Democracy....all about it until they took power and to think us they stormed our embassy and we had the Iranian hostage crisis. The Muslim Brotherhood learned from this, they were all about "democracy" in Egypt until they got it and when the Muslim Brotherhood took power the "pro-democracy" people vanished. The same tactic was used to take over Lebanon and was also used in Libya. Once the brotherhood takes power, much like after the election in Gaza, after the election is over there is never another one; political opposition is dealt with most harshly.]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ZtliT1qqc]