Bernama reported on New Year's Day that 350 supporters and well-wishers of the jailed former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, gathered in the grounds of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, to fete him with New Year greetings. Thirty policemen were on hand to control it.

Yesterday the New Straits Times , The Sun and The Star carried the Bernama report, but the NST "doctored" it without mentioning it had. It quoted Bernama as reporting the gathering was "unruly" while the other two dailies, quoting the same report, said it was "peaceful but noisy".

This "doctoring" of Bernama reports is not unusual and makes fewer people believe what they read in the paper. The Sun and The Star , fighting for the same contested readership, plays it straight, but the NST behaves as the propaganda arm of the government.

The Berita Harian and Utusan groups, also controlled by Umno backers, have their own creative news reports which make them, in the end, less believable. The government is worried it cannot be heard, despite its control of the mainstream newspapers, radio and television, cannot understand why people seek the alternative media to find out what is happening.

In any case, why do newspapers not do their own reporting? A newspaper worth its salt would depend on the news agencies to keep abreast, sending their own reporters to the major breaking news and depending on Bernama as a backstop.

The Anwar Ibrahim story is the only news in town, and yet newspapers give up the ghost to rely on Bernama about it. Bernama , to its credit, does more than a credible job, even if it fudges the details, and often does not realise the contradictions its reports contain.

Government's fears

In this report, for instance, it mentions a gathering of 350 - reporters there say more than 1,000 were there - and mentions the presence of 30 policemen or one policeman to 35 who where there. This suggests the government's fear at gatherings like these, and gives opposition gatherings more credit than it perhaps deserves.

Propaganda badly handled is more dangerous and insidious. The government badly handled the Anwar imbroglio from the start. As it went out of control, its strong arm methods did not have the intended effect. When reports say that these meetings were held without a police permit, as this report did, it suggests, in the public mind, a deliberate flouting of the rules in which the police sit by and do nothing.

Yet they know a policeman would stop them in the street if they are caught speeding and issue a ticket on the spot. Their sympathies go out not to a government that cannot control the crowd but to the crowd itself for standing up, something they often dare not.

If mainstream newspapers want to be believed, they must discard their preconceived ideas that cabinet ministers and Barisan Nasional satraps provide the only comment the readers would like to hear. Even on what the New Year holds for Malaysians, it is they who speak on behalf of the people.

And start questioning official statements with as fine a comb as they opposition reports. It is a battle for the hearts and minds, and they fall short.

They must start reporting the news about all sectors of society, including the opposition. They must comment on issues. Their reporters must compete with Bernama to provide their own versions of what they report. And they must reflect the public debate that goes on outside its pages by taking sides.

What has given the New Straits Times a lift these days is the opinioniated, often tendentious views of former United Nations envoy Abdullah Ahmad. You may disagree with him, as often I do, he may get his facts wrong on occasion, insufferable oftentimes, but you must read him because he reflects a point of view you do not otherwise get. Its editorials must reflect the issues of the day, and not its dirty drains.

And they must not doctor Bernama news and claim it is from the news agency. It is, I admit, a tall order. But if it does not, it has no choice forward except to fall.