There is no such thing as mainstream press or alternative press. And by extension, there is no such thing as mainstream journalism or alternative journalism.

There is only good journalism or bad journalism, both of which have been found to exist in both the so-called mainstream and alternative press.

While many have taken to describing press which are under legislative and government-ownership control as mainstream and hence lacking in honest, professional standards of journalism, the term alternative is conversely used to describe press which are not regulated, eg. the Internet media, which are seen to be credible and smacking of professionalism.

If media critics and observers were to be perfectly honest, they would find evidence of exemplary and professional journalism in the 'mainstream' press.

Similarly, they would find instances of rather poor and bad journalism in the so-called alternative press, including news websites like malaysiakini which has in the recent past had to run clarifications of its news reports because of unprofessional journalism resulting in inaccurate reporting (Inaccurate report on Pak Lah, Nov 29).

The premise that a free media would engender better journalism does not necessarily hold water if the standards of professional journalism - including honesty, accuracy, double-checking of facts, responsibility, clarity and maturity in thought, and good factual writing, among others - are not adhered to.

We saw this happening in Indonesia when press restrictions were lifted after the fall of Suharto. The press flourished in numbers but not in quality. The same happened in the Philippines, and I would venture to say that in Malaysia, we would face the same danger especially if proponents of the free press believe that freedom also means being allowed to put out bad press.

Just because the press is 'free', it does not mean that it is not bound by the standards of professional ethics. It does not mean the free press can choose not to be accurate, fair and factual in its writing. It must be accountable as all press are expected to be.

In fact, the 'free' or 'alternative' press should indeed be more stringent in its adherence of professional standards. After all, it is these so-called press who have taken on the self-imposed role of being the bastions of press freedom and professionalism.

And should they fail to live up to such standards, then they are no better than the 'mainstream' press that they claim to be alternatives to.

I am struck by the story of All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, the Washington Post journalists who exposed President Nixon for Watergate.

These two journalists were not allowed to run a story by a source unless they had received confirmation of the information received by two other unrelated sources. Though it is not always possible for journalists to always do this, the principle remains - that before we write, we double-check our facts and make sure we get it right, because we cannot afford not to.

This is just one standard of good journalism that should apply to both the so-called alternative and mainstream press.

And I must say that while both have not lived up to this standard on numerous occasions, there have also been ample evidence of the practice of such standards by both 'mainstream'' and 'alternative' journalists.

I think it is time for all of us involved in the debate about the state of the Malaysian press to realise that the distinction between what is known as mainstream vs alternative press is arbitrary and quite a poor representative of the real situation.

Those who stick to these black and white definitions of us vs them would do well to remember that such definitions marginalise good journalists in the 'mainstream' press just as they presuppose that all 'alternative' press have high standards of professionalism as a given. A costly mistake to make if our end goal is to lift the standards of journalism in this country collectively as a profession.

And to those who would rally support for 'alternative journalism' (Support alternative journalism, Dec 9-10), I would suggest that you rethink your clarion call to one that supports good journalism over bad journalism.