Is This why CNN cannot...get over themselves with Trump?

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Why didn't CNN's international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain's Arab Spring repression? | Glenn Greenwald | US news | The Guardian

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Bahrain, CNN and why Amber Lyon became a media whistleblower

Little more than three months after Tunisian street vendor, Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire on December 17th 2010, and as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew that included investigative reporter, and three times Emmy award-winning correspondent, Amber Lyon, into the region to produce a one-hour documentary.

“iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring” focussed on the use of social media by demonstrators and other pro-democracy activists, and cost more than $100,000, an unusually large sum for an investigative documentary of that length. Broadcast on CNN’s domestic outlet (available only in the US) on June 19th 2011, it received tremendous acclaim, including a Facebook page created by Bahraini activists, entitled “Thank you Amber Lyon, CNN reporter | From people of Bahrain”, that has received more than 8,000 “likes”

The documentary also picked up many awards, including a 2012 Gold Medal from New York Festival’s Best TV and Films. Yet CNN have never aired the documentary since then, and in spite of many complaints from employees within CNN, it has never been released to a worldwide audience on CNN International (CNNi):

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.

To read more about the story of the extraordinary problems that were encountered during the making of the documentary and more on why CNN is still refusing to air its own documentary, I refer you to Glenn Greenwald’s article published in the Guardian on Tuesday 4th September.

A 13-minute long segment of the documentary that featured Bahrain, and which Greenwald describes as “a hard-hitting and unflinching piece of reporting that depicts the regime in a very negative light” has since been posted on YouTube. It is also embedded below:

In March 2012, Amber 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 [human rights activist Nabeel] 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.

Bahrain portion of iRevolution on CNN June 19 2011 - YouTube

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UPDATE: Here is CNN International's response to Glenn Greenwald's story in the Guardian about Amber Lyon's documentary, iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring.

CNN International has carried advertising and sponsored content since the 1990s. The critical issue is that our editorial operations and our commercial operations are completely separate. No deal ever buys any editorial influence.

Alongside many other international news outlets, CNN International has carried a very small amount of advertising from the Bahrain Economic Development Board. Before, during and after the production timeframe and airing of this specific documentary our editorial coverage of Bahrain has been plentiful, thorough, unbiased and frequently critical, as our previous response below underlines and any search on CNN.com will attest. CNNI's previous response after the jump.

1. False: CNN International did not air "its own documentary".

The Truth: It was never intended to air on CNN International. It was an hour-long program about the impact of social media on the Arab Spring that was commissioned for CNN US, where it ran in June of 2011. The portion of it that concerned Bahrain lasted about 13 minutes. Despite Greenwald’s speculation about the editorial choices that are made when operating multiple networks with different audience profiles, there is nothing unusual about this programming decision.

2. False: CNN International ensured Amber's reporting "was never seen on television by Bahrainis or anyone else in the region."

The Truth: Amber’s reporting from Bahrain was actually featured and promoted on CNN International. This happened months before the full documentary aired on CNN US. While not exhaustive, here are examples when her work was featured:

April 11, 2011. Amber’s Bahrain reporting was featured four different times across the day on CNN International . This included a 14 minute segment that aired in European prime time where a lengthy portion of her reporting (which became part of the documentary) was shown and Amber was interviewed for nine minutes over two segments of the show.
April 12/overnight April 13, 2011. Amber’s reporting is again featured four different times. Again, during European prime time, there is a 17 minute segment with Amber highlighting her Bahrain reporting. A five minute segment of her Bahrain report is shown and she is interviewed and takes questions from Facebook and Twitter.
April 15, 16, 17 and 18. An entire half hour program called "Best of Backstory" is dedicated to Amber's reporting from Bahrain. It runs five times, including a run in European prime time on April 16, 2011.
Amber was thrilled with CNN International's showcasing of her work. She said on the air: “I was surprised. I didn't know that that many people would look at the story so positively or really thank CNN for it. I think they created a thank you Amber Lyons CNN Facebook page and I got tons of tweets and the response has really been phenomenal.”
All told, CNN International featured Amber’s reporting from Bahrain at least 16 times in this one week period and it received almost 3 and a half hours of airtime.
At the core of Greenwald's accusations, he casually uses references to the entire iRevolution documentary as interchangeable with Amber Lyon's reporting from Bahrain. This is sloppy and misleading. Only a portion of the documentary covered Amber's experiences in Bahrain, and that reporting was heavily featured on CNN International. The other segments concerned Tunisia and Egypt. Had Greenwald been clearer about this distinction, the underlying (and false) premise of his article would have fallen apart.

3. Misleading: Amber and her crew were the principal vehicle for CNN’s coverage of Bahrain in 2011.

The Truth: Amber went to Bahrain for a documentary to be aired on CNN US. Programming executives at CNN International did not even know she was there until she began tweeting from Bahrain. This was because Amber failed to follow CNN policy when traveling to and reporting from areas in turmoil. In fact, by the time Amber arrived in Bahrain, CNN already had been covering the unrest in Bahrain for many weeks. By mid February 2011 CNN had already deployed several of its most well respected international correspondents to report on the unrest and the government's violent response, including Nic Robertson, Arwa Damon, Rima Maktabi and CNN International Anchor Hala Gorani. Damon, Maktabi and Gorani are all fluent Arabic speakers.

4. False: CNN avoided covering events in Bahrain “in the first half of 2011.”

The Truth: CNN had multiple, top level international correspondents reporting from Bahrain as early as mid February 2011. These extraordinary reports and the multiple features of Amber’s reporting in April alone prove the falsity of Greenwald’s claim.

5. False: CNN pulled its punches in its reporting on the situation in Bahrain in 2011.

The Truth: CNN International ran more than twenty stories in February 2011 that were critical of the situation in Bahrain, including a piece by CNN Anchor Hala Gorani that spoke directly to the carefully managed public image of Bahrain and how that compared with harsh realities of life for those in the Shiite majority who are excluded from the government. Indeed, during the months leading up to the US airing of the documentary, CNN produced and aired 40 separate packages critical of Bahrain and the events unfolding there.

6. False: There was something scandalous about a requirement that the documentary include a response from the Bahraini government.

The Truth: Seeking and publishing a response from the subject of a story is Journalism 101.

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Lyon claims that CNN “is paid by the U.S. government for reporting on some events, and not reporting on others.”

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During Lyon’s interview with Joe Rogan, she explained that she and another female colleague were part of a 4 person team sent by CNN to Bahrain in 2011. Arriving in Bahrain, Lyon noticed something very odd- the United States government had been supplying over $1 billion worth in weaponry- including tear gas- to the oppressive Bahraini regime looking to suppress popular protests in the country.

Lyon was threatened by United States government personnel while staying on a U.S. Navy base in Bahrain. She was told not to report the incident, or face grave consequences.

Instead, CNN told her to be quiet and not report the Bahraini government’s suppression of peaceful protests, but was forced to report complete lies.

The Guardian confirms much of Lyon’s testimony, and tells us that the CNN journalists themselves were victims of oppression from the Bahraini authorities:

“The CNN crew itself was violently detained by regime agents . 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.”

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Is This why CNN cannot...get over themselves with Trump?

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