===========AMBER LYON, REPORTER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Amber Lyon: I 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGDVzJNMKs8&feature=player_embedded

The Amber Lyon story is just the latest in a series of articles that expose the total censorship rampant in mainstream media today.  The NY Times basically just regurgitates whatever government officials tell them, while the other showcased how an NPR reporter covering D.C. had to leave and do her own thing out of frustration.  This is precisely why alternative media sites are taking off.  They provide the only outlets left for genuine journalism.

So back to Amber.  Back in March 2011, CNN sent a four-person team to Bahrain to cover the Arab Spring.  Once there, the crew was the subject of extreme intimidation amongst other things, but they were able to record some fantastic footage.  As Glenn Greenwald of the UK’s Guardian writes in his blockbuster article from today:

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“At this point,” Lyon said, “I look at those payments as dirty money to stay silent. I got into journalism to expose, not help conceal, wrongdoing, and I’m not willing to keep quiet about this any longer, even if it means I’ll lose those payments.”

From Alex Jones:

CNN Journalist: Mainstream Media Takes Money from FOREIGN Dictators to Run Flattering Propaganda

Washington’s Blog
Oct 1, 2012

If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the American media act as presstitutes for rich and powerful Americans.

But it turns out that the American media will turn “tricks” for foreign johns as well …

Specifically, three time Emmy award winning reporter Amber Lyon was until very recently a respected CNN reporter:

Lyon was fired from CNN after she refused to stop reporting on her first-hand experience of the systematic torture and murder of peaceful protesters by the government of Bahrain.

Lyon’s special report on Bahrain was scheduled to run on both CNN’s U.S. and international networks, but was pulled after only a limited showing due to pressure from the Bahrainis and their lobbyists.

At the same time that Lyon was risking her life to do on-the-ground reporting in Bahrain, another CNN journalist was filming a paid propaganda piece on how the Bahraini leaders are a bunch of friendly pro-democracy reformers.

That’s right … the Bahraini government paid CNN to do what was literally an infomercial for that brutal regime and pretend it was real journalism.

Lyon says that China and many other foreign, authoritarian regimes also pay CNN and other mainstream networks to run flattering propaganda pieces.

===============WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ON LYON

Amber Lyon

Amber Lyon
Born	Denver, Colorado
Nationality	American
Occupation	Journalist, Filmmaker, Photographer

Amber Lyon is an American investigative journalist and photographer. She is known for her work reporting human rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain and police brutality against protesters in the United States.

Early life and education

Amber Lyon was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism, earning a Bachelors degree in Broadcast Journalism.^[1]

Career

Following her graduation from the University of Missouri, Lyon began reporting for KVOA in Tucson, Arizona. In October 2006, Lyon won a regional Emmy award, from the Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, for a late-breaking feature news item called “Fantasy”. She shared the Emmy with KVOA chief photographer Paul Hanke.^[2][3][4] In October 2007 she received her second regional Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter Emmy for “best on-camera talent reporter – general assignment”.^[5] One month later, Lyon left KVOA to take Spanish-language immersion classes in Costa Rica and Guatemala.^[6][7] In October 2008, Lyon again won the Rocky Mountain Emmy Award for best on-camera talent.^[8] In June 2010, she began working for CNN, where she investigated sex trafficking, the Gulf oil spill, and the hacking collective known as Anonymous. Her investigations have focused on cultural, social, and government demonstrations and revolutions; human rights violations; sex trafficking; and environmental issues.

2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill

In July 2010, Lyon was the first journalist to scuba dive under the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, while broadcasting live on television. Her report, presented on CNN, revealed how BP‘s use of dispersants was sinking the oil into the water column, turning it into what she called “hidden oil”, that could not be cleaned up or skimmed out of the water.^[9] Lyon and dive partner Philippe Cousteau found beads of broken down oil floating ten feet into the water column and questioned why BP would sink the oil, if that meant the oil would be impossible to clean up.^[10][11] Lyon’s investigative reports from the Gulf of Mexico contributed to CNN winning a Peabody Award for oil spill coverage.^[12]

2010 Craigslist sex trafficking

In 2010, Lyon investigated the sex trafficking of US minors on the online classified site Craigslist. Attorneys General from 17 states sent a letter to the online classified site demanding the closure of the adult services section, citing portions of Lyon’s investigation in the letter.^[13] As a result, Craigslist closed down the section worldwide.^[14] Lyon also won a Gracie Award for women in media for the story.^[15]

2011 Arab Spring

In 2011, CNN sent a four-person investigative film crew to Bahrain to examine the use of social media and Internet technology in facilitating the Arab Spring, or revolution, in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain.^[16] The resulting work was entitled iRevolution: Online Warriors of the Arab Spring, featured Lyon as the on-air correspondent. The documentary was honored with a 2012 New York Festivals International Television and Film Gold World Medal Award.^[17][18] Lyon and her segment producer, Taryn Fixel, were recognized as finalists for the 2011 Livingston Award for Young Journalists for their work on the documentary.^[17]

Prior to arriving in Bahrain, the CNN film crew had made arrangements for support and assistance from locals for the planned eight days that they were in the country. Interviews were scheduled with various individuals, who planned on participating in the documentary and speaking about the ongoing civil unrest and desire for governmental change in the region. While preparing for the interviews, following their arrival in the country, the CNN crew discovered that the majority of their contacts had gone into hiding or outright refused to participate, due to fears of retaliation from the governing regime. Actual acts of retaliation for those that participated included criminal charges, loss of employment, and destruction of family homes through fire.^[17]

The Bahraini individuals that were interviewed include doctors, patients, and civilians, who showed Lyon how they were tortured during an intense crackdown on protests, as well as after Bahraini Security forces took over the country’s main hospital.^[19][20] Lyon also investigated and reported on Bahrain’s systematic use of tear gas as a crowd-control device. She reported that while the tear gas was approved by the United Nations as a peace-keeping measure, the use resulted in the suffocation of protesters. In interviews following the reports, Lyon stated that she fears that the daily and nightly tear gassing will have long-term health effects on Bahrain’s people.^[21]

After evading their government minders and covertly entering villages to document human rights abuses in Bahrain, the film crew experienced direct retaliation when they were detained at gunpoint with machine guns. According to Lyon, while the CNN team was detained, Bahraini security forces attempted to confiscate and destroy all of the processed film, however, Lyon and her producer were able to conceal vital video footage, which was used to create the documentary.^[22]

The documentary iRevolution was produced by CNN and was aired by CNN US though never aired in full on CNN international.^[23][17] Lyon worked with journalist Glenn Greenwald to investigate and present their findings and summation that the government of Bahrain, as well as other countries throughout the world are paying CNN for content.^[17][24] While CNN International denies Lyon’s claims of censorship or any wrongdoing, they confirmed that they receive payment from the Bahrain Economic Development Board for advertising.^[25] The response of CNN International was criticized and dismissed by both Lyon and Greenwald.^[26][27]

2012 Anaheim police shooting and protests

Lyon also reported on the aftermath of the July 21, 2012, shooting of Manuel Diaz in Anaheim, California, by local police officers responding to a neighborhood watch call. When the officers arrived and approached the group, the three men started to flee the scene. During the chase, the unarmed Diaz was fatally shot by one of the officers.^[28][29]

In response to the protests and rioting following the shooting of Diaz, the Anaheim Police Department brought out riot gear in attempts to control the crowds.^[30][31][32] While attempting to report on the shooting, along with citywide protests, Lyon and colleague Tim Pool were fired upon by members of the Anaheim Police Department. The incident was captured on video, due to live filming at the time. Lyon reported that she had to hide between two trucks for several minutes to avoid being hit.^[33]

Honors and awards

• 2006 – Emmy Award, Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter: feature news report within 24 hours
• 2007 – Emmy Award, Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter: best on-camera talent
• 2008 – Emmy Award, Rocky Mountain Southwest Chapter: best on-camera talent

References