In defense of Kalimullah Hassan, group editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times and all other editors of mainstream newspapers, their role is not to report news as it unfolds but to disseminate Barisan Nasional information and to promote BN popularity among their readers.

Their unspoken rule is to discredit and to lampoon opposition leaders whenever possible.

On the current controversy , the NST editor-in-chief has done just that - picked up an inaccurate parliamentary report to discredit Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang.

In the past, when the BN was more united, opposition personalities were never mentioned together with the names of BN personalities. An inaccurate press report would have been brushed over.

Today, however there is a House divided and when such a report backfires, the editor-in-chief falls into bad repute with both the BN and the opposition. But if you look at it from the point of view of his position and what he was hired to do, he has done what he is supposed to quite efficiently.

The point is to change the system to allow newspapers to report independently. We do not have to have journalists in these newspapers being mere copy typists. Let's bring back professional journalism and reporting - then perhaps I will start buying the local newspapers again.