According to BBC, Bahrain was one of the first states in the Gulf to discover oil and to build a refinery. This lead to the country benefiting from oil wealth before most of its neighbors. Despite the country gaining wealth in oil the media in the country is not free. They stated that,
"Bahraini journalists risk prosecution for offences which include "undermining" the government and religion. Self-censorship is widespread."
The BBC country profile for media shows that all of the media outlets in Bahrain are state-run and the ones that are opposed to the governments views are blocked. TV remains the main source of news with all of the stations being pro government.
There have been signs of CNN having business-like with the Bahrain government selling them material that is in favor of the governments views. A report for CNN named Amber Lyon came out about this controversy. According to The Guardian,
"In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region."
Reportedly, the time the CNN crew arrived many sources who had agreed to speak were in hiding or had disappeared. Those who were interviewed were threatened. An example of this is human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was charged with crimes shortly after speaking to the CNN team. The crew was also violently detained by regime agents. The article by The Guardian states that,
"On 19 June 2011 at 8pm, CNN's domestic outlet in the US aired "iRevolution" for the first and only time."
The documentary had been nominated for awards and so were the directors. This makes it strange to think that such a great documentary isn't being aired internationally to spread the word about whats going on in the country of Bahrain. CNN had responded to these claims saying,
"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."
It is hard to decide who is telling the truth but with various CNN employees complaining that it wasn't aired internationally raises many questions.