BY LES HORTON

I remember when I first came to Bahrain, a senior journalist described it as a “good news society”, which he said was intolerant of the truth or criticism.
There was certainly a combative relationship between the media, certain authorities and larger private organisations, who felt that they should control what appeared in local newspapers.
Much has improved since those days and while there is never total Press freedom – in any country – the media in Bahrain now tackles issues that were once taboo and government and private sector organisations are generally more transparent.
But occasionally old habits kick in and organisations take punitive action against the media for reporting things they don’t like.
For example, officials at the Labour Market Regulatory Authority have been refusing to talk to the GDN since we reported the LMRA’s threat last month to cancel all visas for foreign workers, at companies which failed to pay labour fees.
Sources within the LMRA told us only days ago that they were no longer supposed to speak to us, since we had been giving the organisation “bad Press” – presumably by reporting on the outcry amongst contractors and other businesses over the levy of BD10 per month per expatriate worker.
We have always given the LMRA an opportunity to respond with its side of the case, but officials have lately persistently refused to comment, or even just slammed down the phone.
This unprofessional behaviour would be bad enough in a private company, but this is a government organisation answerable to the public and to whom clear communication with that public is vital.
That it should choose to try to blank out a national newspaper for reporting the sentiments of a wide cross-section of the business community is a throwback to 20 years ago, at a time when we are heralding economic, social and political reform.
One of the key culprits over the years in seeking to gag the Press has been Gulf Air, which has repeatedly banned the GDN and its sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej from its flights, for reporting stories it did not want published.
Now we are off the planes again, without warning or explanation.
But what such organisations should realise is that in shutting out or seeking to gag the media, they are also challenging the public’s right to know.
That right, along with freedom of expression, has been guaranteed under Bahrain’s constitution and repeatedly reinforced in addresses by the country’s leadership.
But some organisations, it seems, believe that this national promise of openness and transparency does not apply to them.