Changing the colour of Sun's logo from red and black to all-red on the advice of feng shui geomancers — whether or not auspicious for a debt-ridden business — is certainly inauspicious for some 40 staff members, mostly journalists, laid off. (The colour red is connotative of bloodletting!)

In medieval England, the boss would literally hand you a "sack". You got the sack and you put all your stuff in the sack, slung it over your shoulder and leave the place of work. That's where the term "get the sack" comes from.

Nowadays, a more euphemistic term, "retrenched", is used. I was told that "retrenchment" means something like getting your head cut off in French.

Based on deferment to pay year-end bonuses, The Sun 's reason for massive layoff is probably plain economic difficulties and the need to scale down manpower as it stated in the letters of termination rather than some insidious political plot. With a lawyer at the helm to look into legal implications of termination, the exercise seems easier to carry out.

There, however, could be other factors that served as catalysts.

One of the editors, Andy Ng, resigned for reasons that he stood by the report on the alleged assassination plots on the prime minister and deputy prime minister. Other journalists went on a picket for the reinstatement of their colleagues and over the delay in paying their bonuses.

Such independence of journalistic spirit is perhaps frowned upon, what is more valued may be a team of fawning and obsequious courtiers on the editorial board and journalist team.

Ironically, it is a tame press that makes it boring, restricts the expansion of its 82,000 readership, and at 80 sen a copy how much profit is there to make after paying production, general administrative and salary costs?

The overridding consideration appears to be that the powers-that-be cannot be antagonised and a statement has to be made!

But what is the real truth?

This question of why a senior journalist stood by what was reported that the daily subsequently unreservedly retracted has not adequately been addressed, and maybe in time, it will hopefully be known.

If what the first report said was true, it is even more mystifying why the authorities and those supposedly imperilled denied its truth, whatever the economic implications.

There is also a question of what retrenched journalists who cannot be absorbed in other mainstream news groups (equally under economic distress and adverse to independent journalists) are going to do to eke a living during these economically challenging times.

Picketing and law suits on unlawful termination will not be the only problems The Sun 's management will face in the coming year.

The journalists who have an inside track of how things are done in The Sun may not be silenced especially when they are now no longer its employees. As freelancers, they can write and tell their story. Maybe even in malaysiakini .

We are all waiting for the "other" side of the story to be told.

I see the prospect of this daily being mired in further controversy with each passing day as events unfold. Maybe such controversy could unexpectedly increase its readership.