Kebohongan CNN di Bahrain

Sebuah tulisan yang dilengkapi video di The Guardian (Inggris) sempat membuat banyak orang terkejut. Artikel di media Inggris itu muncul pada tahun 2012 lalu, tapi tidak banyak yang mengutip atau menggaungkannya. Maklum saja, sebab tulisan itu mempermalukan raksasa media AS, CNN, yang dikenal sebagai salah satu media paling beken di dunia.

Seperti saya, Anda juga pasti kaget membacanya. Ternyata media sebesar CNN pun masih berlaku tidak etis, dan menyembunyikan berita (kebenaran) yang diliput wartawannya di Bahrain. Setidaknya, demikian yang dilaporkan Amber Lyon dari CNN.

Selain itu, menurut video yang ada di link ini, pemerintah Bahrain rupanya telah menggunakan konsultan PR untuk meredam agar berita tersebut tidak disiarkan.

Internal whistleblowing on CNN’s coverage of the Bahrain protests.

On September 5, 2012 with the help of journalist Glenn Greenwald, Lyon exposed that CNN International never aired her documentary, iRevolution, on the Bahrain uprising. In an article by Greenwald in The Guardian newspaper, Lyon accuses the network of censoring the documentary because the Bahrain regime is a paying customer at the network.

The article also exposes that the government of Bahrain, as well as other governments throughout the world, are paying CNN for special content casting their countries in a positive light.

On September 29, 2012, Lyon appeared on the Infowars program. She described her investigation of how the US ally Bahrain was committing human rights abuses, but said that CNN and the US government pressured her to suppress the news.[35] She said that Bahrain paid CNN for positive news coverage.[36] Lyon said that Kazakhstan and Georgia also paid for positive coverage by CNN.

In March 2013, a report from the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said the “Slovak main news website” reported Lyon claiming to have received orders from CNN to report selectively and falsely in order to sway public opinion in favor of direct American aggression against Iran and Syria, and that this was common practice at CNN.

In October 2013, Lyon self-published a book: Peace, Love and Pepper Spray, a photographic essay of protests in the United States.

Video di bawah menunjukkan bahwa sejak tahun 2011, pemerintah Bahrain dibantu pemerintah negara lain, telah menyiksa dan membunuhi rakyatnya sendiri. Dan rakyat negeri itu, menurut laporan Amber Lyon, berusaha melakukan revolusi via Internet semaksimal mungkin.