I refer to Geoff Bray's malaysiakini more biased than those it criticised.
I'm not sure where Mr Bray comes from to simply dismissed James Wong's articles as inanities but I presume that just because James Wong and Oon Yeoh leans towards a particular worldview, then their writings are dismissed as trash and inanities.
Personally speaking, being a defence analyst and journalist which would perhaps make me somewhat qualified to judge what is nonsensical writing or not on such matters, both these columnists have articulated their points well.
The intellectual exercise in this is, if one disagrees with their point, one must rebut their points with a sensible counter-argument rather than purely dismissing them as inanities as Mr Bray has done.
The point that Mr Bray missed is that both Mr Wong and Mr Oon are writing and showing that there are Malaysians with an alternate view on world events.
If one flips Mr Bray's points, then by the same arguments, Malaysians with a pro-Iraq view shouldn't write either as there are liberal writers and pro-Iraq writers who do the job better too.
As for publications of letters, bear in mind the constraints of space and editorial content means that not all letters would be published.
Though I would say that malaysiakini has been fair, after all only recently they published a letter in which I was critical of an editorial by editor-in-chief Steven Gan, hardly the case of biases (and no I do not have any friends in malaysiakini ).
Sometimes letters do not get published because they say the same things that other letters have said, they do not make sense or the fact that they rank lower in quality than the other letters being received, there is not one publication in the world that prints every letter it receives.
Still, while I do not agree with malaysiakini on everything it publishes, I think they have done fairly in their letters publication. At the end of the day, malaysiakini , their readers and columnists do have the right to voice their opinions whether one likes it or not.
If there are more writings that are contrary to ones personal views, it could simply be that those views are more numerous, prolific or coherant in writing, rather than just an editorial bias.
Mr Bray's view can be simplified to the point that "I want malaysiakini to publish things only in line with my views and not anything else".
Simple solution to that really, I suggest Mr Bray start his own publication so that he can read only the views agreeable to him.
Dzirhan Mahadzir is a freelance defence journalist and currently contributions editor to the Asean Defence and Diplomacy Yearbook and contributing editor to the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter .
