COMMENT | The dinner last week to mark 100 days of the new government did not go unnoticed at the neighbourhood Chinese restaurant. Although in a room, the stalwarts were in their element – emphasising (stridently) and accentuating that they had made the right decision.

It was unanimous: “We elected a government for five years; So why judge them after just a hundred days? So, we should stop adjudicating them before that.”

With that settled, the discussion moved to the media. And being the only media person in the circle, I was asked: “Why is so much space and airtime being given to Najib and the Umno leaders who caused us so much misery?”

That’s freedom of the press, freeing editors of their subservience to their political leaders who also double up as their owners. Editors should not censor articles and encourage journalists to tell it as it is – minus the party propaganda.

One asked: “Didn’t the BN people insist that (Prime Minister) Dr Mahathir Mohamed and his Pakatan Harapan colleagues be demonised? Shouldn’t they get a taste of their own medicine?”

This is the new Malaysia where the media work independently without any Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

But why give Sungai Besar Umno chief Jamal Md Yunos so much space and time, asked another.

He, I argued, provides some comic relief to the serious stuff that you read...