The lack of foreign press coverage means a virtual monopoly on airwaves for state-run BTV. It has become a symbol of the Sunni regime's ongoing propaganda campaign against Shi'ites, the 70 percent majority they claim are responsible for the entirety of the political and economic unrest that has swept this country since police first fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and pellets at peaceful demonstrators in the early hours of February 14.

"The narrative the government wants to put across, which is powerful, is that this is a sectarian conflict, different than what happened in Egypt and Tunisia. And the vehicle it chose to do that with is BTV, because it's the only thing it had in its arsenal," said Ali Al-Saffar, Middle East economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. "It got across the story the government wanted it to get across, which is to frame the protest movement as being solely Shi'a -- which we knew it wasn't -- as violent, and to make the Sunna minority feel like if the protesters got what they wanted, the Sunni community would be threatened."

Stories of the deceptive tactics used by BTV crews run rampant in Manama. Protesters repeatedly told me they watched crews -- usually wearing balaclava masks, to avoid identification -- plant knives and guns at protest sites, then turn on the cameras to film the weapons and protesters suggestively side-by-side. (During my time in the country, I never saw one protester wielding a weapon.) Staffers at Salmaniya Hospital, which fell under military control after dozens of Saudi Arabian tanks rolled into the country on March 13, said they were being held hostage in the emergency wing, beaten and sent back inside if they tried to leave. But if you watched BTV, you'd have seen a different picture -- a happy doctor walking unscathed through the doors of the ER to freedom. Nurses told me he was beaten once the cameras were turned off, then sent back inside.

The narrative that BTV keeps driving is one in which Sunnis should fear the mostly Shi'ite protesters, with an implicit warning -- if they win, you are in danger. And after weeks of state media propaganda, the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shi'a is at an all-time high, with one Sunni describing his Shi'a neighbors as "cockroaches" that "must be put down." On more than one occasion, officials from al-Wefaq worried about similarities between BTV's rhetoric and that of the Hutu radio stations that rallied Rwandan Hutus to slaughter their Tutsi brethren 17 years ago.

Liz, a Shi'ite in her late 20s, has family members still in prison. She rarely leaves home -- every time she ventures out, she risks getting pulled over at a police checkpoint and forced to show ID. If identified as Shi'a, the consequences could be severe -- an impromptu beating, maybe even a pair of handcuffs. She said she blames Bahrain TV for the Sunnis' fear. Her brother, seated next to her in the family's living room, was frustrated when I told him the average Sunna likely saw him as violent, gun-toting, and ready to topple the government -- as well as any Sunna who stood in his way.