Journalists are a group of media professionals with a unique and privileged place in much of the world today. But in a semi-liberal, pseudo-democratic country such as Malaysia, they have to constantly struggle if they know the awesome and true spirit of journalism at all - against the political apparatus in order to report and analyse without fear and favour.

Much has been written about the scandals surrounding several mainland Chinese women allegedly molested by the police while in detention, and credit must be given to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who has ordered an independent inquiry into the incidents.

While the government has been making every effort to contain the damage, it was most imprudent of Noh Omar, the deputy internal security minister, to remark that foreigners who thought the Malaysian police was cruel should go home.

According to Merdekareview.com , an in-depth Chinese news website, journalists were instructed by the Prime Minister's Office to eschew reporting Noh's gaffe, while the deputy minister himself walked into the press room and "appealed to" those present to make no mention of his fiery words.

The hasty response of the government to Noh's impulsive remarks only ran counter to the modern realities, what more so with the omnipotent Internet. Just when the powers-that-be were rushing to pull the wool over the nation's eyes, Noh has been going places since and is fast becoming a household name in China, Hong Kong, the major English-speaking countries and, quite naturally, Singapore, all thanks to the new media and for all the wrong reasons.

In a tacit admission that media blackout hardly works these days, the prime minister censured Noh for making the inappropriate statement, forcing Noh to eat crow. Journalists who had been barred from reporting Noh's infamous remarks were suddenly free to put him on the front pages. What a difference a day can make!

Fighting against state control aside, those who are desirous of media independence and the freedom to report should realise that the contesting paradigm of journalism is also shaped by the competition for influence among diverse groups of social actors.

Open terrain

It is an open terrain on which the players and actors compete for political, social and cultural influence, and all the more so with the flourishing electronic media in the form of TV and radio.

For some analysts and commentators who have made their marks in the print media, it is inevitable that they are finding it hard to digest the fact that a streetwise, amateurish and 'shallow' radio talk-show host or guest has stolen their limelight away, while perceiving their 'exclusive domain' in the public sphere to be encroached upon by this 'lesser' peer.

But one must not be too nave to believe the daunting task is only peculiar to the journalist of the so-called developing world. Far from it.

Before 1995, there were practically only two news providers CNN and the BBC - that could claim to shape and make world opinions. Worse for many, they were both English-speaking.

Since the introduction of the Arabic al-Jazeera and the Chinese-language Phoenix Channel , both CNN and the BBC have been made to realise that their perspectives in regard to the news that they produce and present can no longer go unchallenged globally.

Granted, the Phoenix Channel is an out-and-out pro-Beijing broadcaster that still ridiculously proclaims its 'impartiality', despite that it can never address Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan properly as Mr President, tries very hard to avoid referring to the island-state as the Republic of China, its official name, and calls the Presidential Office rather comically 'the office of Taiwan's top leader', it nevertheless reflects the view and sentiment of the Chinese-speaking world to a considerable extent.

"So, would you prefer the Pheonix Channel to be shut down for good, given your anti-Beijing stance?" I was once asked by a student of mine.

I laughed, quite heartily so: 'Why should I? I disagree with much of what it says, but I will defend to death its right to say it.'

But I have reason to believe President Bush may not share these famous words of Voltaire.

Bombing al-jazeera

Recently Britain's Daily Mirror , citing unnamed sources, reported that the US president once toyed with the idea of bombing the Doha-based al-Jazeera , and confided it in Prime Minister Tony Blair when the latter visited the White House in April last year at the height of the US military attack on Fallujah.

As the president was exhausting all possible strategies to win the war against the insurgents, al-Jazeera's greatest sin was to air bloody scenes from within the besieged city, which in turn fanned anti-Bush sentiments across the Muslim world. To Washington, the Middle East news network was adhering too much to its motto: the opinion and the other opinion.

The Observer further alleges that those who have seen the secret memo between the two leaders are convinced that "Bush was serious"

As the single most important interested party, al-Jazeera has sent its Director-General Wadah Khanfar to London in the hope of meeting the prime minister, and he is still waiting for an appointment to be confirmed by Downing Street

In a manner that was arguably unbecoming but certainly unusual of the government's top lawyer, Lord Goldsmith, the British Attorney-General, warned the media not to reveal the contents of the memo, failing which one could be charged under the Official Secrets Act (yes, they have it in the UK too!).

As I am writing this, a civil servant and a researcher have appeared in court facing OSA charges

Dismayed over the AG's overreaction, Boris Johnson, an MP and the editor of the Spectator , the Tory mouthpiece, challenged the government by calling on others to pass him the document sooner, which he would be most happy to publish and risk a jail sentence.

Never a Tory fan, I salute Johnson for his courage nonetheless.

But there is no love lost between al-Jazeera and the Bush administration. As Hugh Miles has written, the overwhelming sympathy of the Muslim world for the American people in the aftermath of 9/11 melted away and transformed into anguish and despair "after al-Jazeera's pictures showed the extent of collateral damage inflicted on Afghan civilians by the coalition's bombing" while "America's foreign policy in Israel and the Occupied Territories remained unchanged".

As soon as the war on Afghanistan began, the US government began to regard al-Jazeera as one of its nemeses. Just before the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul in November 2001, US armed forces dropped a 500-pound bomb on the studios of the popular Arab satellite TV station.

During the battle for the capture of Baghdad in April 2003, a US missile struck al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub.

As usual, the Americans claimed that mistakes were hard to avoid in war.

'Scheming propagandists'

The distrust of investigative journalism of the Bush administration is time and again manifest through Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary. In February 2002, his department set up the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) with a view to shoring up support for the war on terror.

Shocking leaks later revealed that the OSI's purpose was to supply false information to foreign journalists and war apologists as part of a dishonest media campaign.

The office eventually folded in the face of a plethora of misinformation and mounting public pressure. A deeply uneasy Rumsfeld, whose pride had been severely hurt, managed to control his temper by keeping the journalists entertained: 'The office is done, what do you want? Blood?'

Rumsfeld has never concealed his detest of al-Jazeera . Also in April 2004, he publicly accused it of "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable" reports about the war in Iraq, and denounced it for lying about the US terror in Fallujah.

Hearing all this, I cannot help recalling the way the indignant Chinese leadership branded all foreign media as "scheming propagandists" out to undermine China's image by constantly highlighting Beijing's appalling human rights records.

I can forgive the Chinese for making such childish remarks. At least they do not go around the world preaching about the importance of an open media and a free press for a country's development as the Americans do. In other words, it is hard to chastise countries like China and Malaysia for practising double standards in this respect.

With great power comes great responsibility. Whereas the messenger in Malaysia may be gagged when the news becomes too ghastly to bear, he or she could very well be bombed if the great power deems the information way out of line.

For honest and inquisitive media professionals such as Sami al-Hajj and Tayseer Allouni the job can only get harder.