CNN’s Effusive Coverage of Kazakhstan Is Quietly Sponsored by Its Subject
But, if you go online to watch the clips on oil mining or read about the changing capital city, you might notice a disclaimer at the bottom of the article that reads, “CNN’s Eye On series often carries sponsorship originating from the countries we profile. However CNN retains full editorial control over all of its reports.”
The show’s website discloses the state-owned sponsors, but not if viewed from the U.S. Sponsorship is nothing out of the ordinary — you might notice ads running alongside this very post — but it turns out that there are some unusual things going on with CNN International’s Kazakhstan series. You’d have to know the country pretty well to spot them, which I don’t and didn’t. But a Central Asia-based consultant named Myles Smith did, pointing them out in a post on EuriasaNet.org (disclosure: as an Atlantic partner site, EurasiaNet articles frequently appear on TheAtlantic.com).
The first thing that Smith found is also perhaps the strangest. He writes that both the website and TV-only promotional teasers say that the program is “in association with” a firm called Samruk-Kazyna and the Astana Economic Forum. Oddly, it doesn’t actually name either of these groups, merely displaying their logos, which Smith recognized. Samruk-Kazyna is a massive, state-run holding company that manages national assets and resources worth tens of billions of dollars. The Astana Economic Forum, also state-run, lists “attracting potential investors and partners to help facilitate development projects” as an official goal.
Browsing the Eyes On page and watching the clips myself, I could find no indication of who was sponsoring the program or even that it had sponsors at all, other than the vague note about “sponsorship [often] originating from the countries we profile,” which doesn’t clarify if that means the country’s government or just companies that happen to work within that country.