The press may not be the world's oldest profession, but it's certainly one of the oddest and most ill-assorted.

Ranging all the way from papers that strive to serve the people by exposing and espousing the truth without fear or favour, to publications that prostitute themselves in the service of unscrupulous politicians and proprietors to screw the gullible populace with shameless fervour.

In countries occupying places 160 to 168 at the bottom of the current Reporters without Borders' Press Freedom Index - namely Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea - the press publishes nothing but the official line, and so 'editors' and 'journalists' in these places are state-supported press whores, pure and simple.

A little further up the list, the situation becomes less black-and-white. In Russia, for example, at position 147, many so-called journalists remain from the 'old school' of the USSR news agency Pravda , whose name translated as 'truth' but whose content was pure propaganda. But such prostitutes of the Russian press are increasingly shamed by genuine, honest-to-God journalists like the late Anna Politkovskaya, recently murdered, or should I say martyred, for keeping the faith.

Thousands of other journalists in Russia and dozens of other countries where the press is suppressed or repressed, including Malaysia, also battle hard to express the truth. In their struggle risking their livelihood, liberty and even in some places and cases, their lives.

But just as many if not more of their colleagues take the line of least resistance or simply sell out, surrendering self-respect and credibility in return for regular salaries.

Some who sell their souls this cheaply can't cope for too long with how professionally debauched and disreputable they've become, and move to more lucrative and less ethically-exacting fields like magazines, public relations or advertising.

Some quit in disgust and turn to blogging, or go legitimate as journalists in the alternative media.

But others become committed to careers in presstitution, abandoning all conscience and self-respect in hopes of promotion to the heights of press harlotry, the ranks of editors and managers paid to pimp for their political patrons. And one of their number in Malaysia has even risen to the position of chief perverter of the press, complete with the grossly misleading title 'Minister for Information'.

No safe haven

Old hands who either defect from the prostituted press or rise to its more rarified levels leave lots of vacancies behind them. But these blank spaces are readily refilled by a steady supply of virgin journalists. Starry-eyed innocents who have no idea of what they're getting into, or else come equipped with the confidence to convince themselves that they're savvy enough to protect their ideals and integrity by working in the non-political sections of the newspapers.

The trouble is, no department of a prostituted press is a safe haven from pressure to commit sins of falsehood, spin and omission. If the Minister for Sport needs the nation's Formula 1 Grand Prix to be a success, for example, it has to be reported as such. And if the prime minister needs an electoral feel-good factor, it has to be reflected in everything from the business section to the crime reports. In fact I'd be surprised if even the comics or horoscopes escape political scrutiny, supervision and censorship.

There's another, non-political kind of presstitution that journalists get caught up in, too. The unethical if not outright corrupt practice of passing-off paid advertising as editorial content, as in all those fake 'articles' in the business, lifestyle, fashion, automotive, dining entertainment and other sections of commercially-compromised publications the world over.

Which brings us to the fact that, if the press situation is dire in countries faring poorly on the Freedom Index, it's hardly less disgraceful in many nations high on the list whose newspapers are relatively free of official restraint or intimidation. In fact some of the newspapers in the 'free' world prostitute themselves even more blatantly, if possible, than many in the censored world, and also even more inexcusably.

For every shining light like the New York Times or Washington Post , there's a rash of tabloid trash like the New York Post or the National Enquirer . For every quality title like the London Financial Times or The Independent , there's a Sun or News of the World striving mightily to maintain its massive circulation by sinking ever lower into the depths of sin, spin, sleaze, slander and outright lying.

Many of the 'journalists' on these gutter tabloids aren't just presstitutes, they're street-walkers. Lurking around outside the homes and haunts of royalty or anything else resembling a celebrity for 'scoops' of breathtaking irrelevance: whatever it takes to attract and titillate their readership of gossip-junkies, lager louts, neo-fascists, closet sociopaths and intellectual pygmies, and help further enrich their rapacious and unprincipled proprietors.

Australia has its share of such press obscenities too. Like the Daily Telegraph , known in Sydney journalism circles as 'The harlot of Holt Street' in dual reference to its quality and the location of its offices, and Melbourne's horrific Herald-Sun .

These and other 'newspapers' of their ilk everywhere in the 'free' world are a waste of perfectly good ink and newsprint, and their 'journalists' are a disgrace to everything that the press is supposed to stand for. They're also an affront to the untold thousands of genuine journalists battling repressive regimes around the world to bring the truth to their reality-starved readers.

So come World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) on May 3, and at its Kuala Lumpur observances at the Central Market on May 5 and 6, let's remember that we're fighting not only to achieve press freedom everywhere from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, Burma to Uzbekistan, the Maldives to Malaysia, but to keep press freedom alive where it has already been won.

And let's not forget that our task isn't just to oppose the oppressors of the press, but to also to shame, reform and if possible rehabilitate those proprietors, editors and journalists who prostitute their talents in the service of the oppressors.