CNN Is Still Running State Propaganda for a Dictatorship and No One Cares

Catching up on CNN’s nonstop UAE infomercials.

May 31, 2023

As The Column initially reported in 2021 and 2022, CNN is being paid to write, produce, and brand P.R. fluff for a gulf dictatorship—most of it entirely undisclosed. As of May 2023, the outlet are still doing this, despite modest public pushback a year and a half ago from human rights groups. CNN’s United Arab Emirates propaganda machine is marching on unabated and The Column thought it was worth catching up on some of its latest hard-hitting content.

Here are some CNN articles promoting the dictatorship from just the past month:

The most shameless puff piece was from yesterday, headlined, “Private jets get a bad rap. This company is trying to make them greener,” which had the honor of engaging in the rare double green-washing of both dictatorships and the extremely rich, parlaying propaganda for an oil-dependent absolute monarchy with “green” branding and marketing copy for a private jet company. A true masterpiece in dead-eyed P.R. posing as journalism.

CNN courageously standing up for the much-maligned private jet industry

Three of the above articles contain the cryptic disclaimer, “This CNN Travel series is, or was, sponsored by the country it highlights. CNN retains full editorial control over subject matter, reporting and frequency of the articles and videos within the sponsorship, in compliance with our policy.” But most do not. It’s unclear how CNN editors or Warner Bros. Discovery’s higher-ups distinguish between sponsored and not sponsored puff pieces.

According to Amnesty International, the UAE is currently jailing at least 26 people for political speech. The regime banned the Disney film Lightyear last year for a same sex kiss and has instructed Netflix to purge all of its LGBTQ content from its UAE-available library. In addition to holding zero elections and detaining and killing journalists and critics of the regime, the UAE continues to support Saudi Arabia’s blockade tactics against Yemen, starving Yemenis and cutting them off from medical supplies. In 2018, UAE imprisoned Jordanian journalist Tayseer al-Najjar for three years for “insulting the state’s symbols.” According to Human Rights Watch, the conviction was based on “Facebook posts written before he moved to the UAE to work as a culture reporter for Dar newspaper in April 2015. The trial judgment also cited comments he allegedly made to his wife on the telephone that were critical of the UAE.” According to Reporters Without Borders, the UAE is 145th in the world in press freedom out of 195 countries, with a score of “0.”

The country is also paying Warner Bros. Discovery what one can only assume millions of dollars to whitewash its image to western audiences.

As several major digital media outlets either close or see severe layoffs, and Saudi-funded VICE files for bankruptcy, it’s clear outlets are turning to increasingly unseemly sources of funding to keep their media verticals afloat. When Emily Kuhn, Vice President of Communications at CNN and Paul Ferguson, manager of News Technology Integration, International Newsource at CNN, were reached for comment they did not respond. They also didn’t respond when asked to comment on CNN’s partnership with the UAE in September 2021.

This all very banal and met with a collective silence, especially by those media outlets that claim to care about “foreign influence” on American discourse. The same Daily Beast, for example, that routinely writes innuendo-laden tabloid hit pieces on foreign influence in Left media employs as a weekly columnist, David Rothkompf, who is literally a registered foreign agent of UAE receiving $600,000 a year to produce propaganda for the regime. Somehow The Daily Beast’s keen eye for sinister foreign influence doesn’t extend to its own columnists.

Despite this all being publicly available information, no one in the media really cares. The slightest hint of “foreign alignment” is treated as a scandal of the highest order when said foreign influence is a country not in good standing with the US State Department. But when it’s a human rights-abusing dictatorship that allies with the US State Department, news that these despots are paying our major corporate media and pundits to do PR for them solicits zero follow up coverage or comparable outrage.