As a columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh, Nanyang Siang Pau , and See Hua Daily at various times during the last 15 years, I read with interest your report

on the plan to launch yet another Chinese national daily paper.

The question is whether the appearance of another Chinese newspaper, and the commercial competition it provides to the two dominant players in the field, will change drastically the current stifling newspeak that runs rampant in our Malaysian version of the "Brave New World".

Before the MCA takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau in May last year, the Chinese press had always been a crucial forum for the Chinese community at large. In contrast to the English and Malay press, the Chinese papers were more open to diverse coverage of news.

Moreover, their opinion pages were a vibrant forum filled with animated but healthy debates on national issues. Both veteran and young journalists and writers appreciated this little oasis of relatively free expression, which could provide the conditions for the nurturing of a civil society.

The Nanyang group was in private hands then. The commercial competition it provided to the Sin Chew group created this limited space for editorial professionals to allow or even encourage competition in news coverage and publication of opinions.

After the competition was removed with the MCA takeover of the Nanyang group, the Chinese print media degenerated into a pale, sterile pretender to professional excellence. The unholy alliance of political interests, business and media control effectively kills off any prospect of a free press, as always.

Rumours about a Sarawak-based company publishing another Chinese daily in KL have been around for more than a year. It makes business sense. By posing as an alternative to the 'fallen' Nanyang and the long-'conquered' Sin Chew , the new player can make a killing in market share with strategic and skillful manoeuvre — if we have a true market economy.

Your reporter has described KTS Sdn Bhd — the publisher of the new paper — as a plantation company. The fact is that the KTS group based in Sibu has always had a significant presence in the timber industry in Sarawak, and has close ties with the ruling party there. After all, nobody can ever make a fortune from logging in Sarawak without very strong connection with the power centre there.

Can a company with such politically tinted background publish an independent paper in KL? I do not know enough about the whole project to pass any hasty judgment, lest the prejudice of a cynic becomes his own worst enemy.

I notice some of my friends are going to be involved in the new paper. These are sincere pressmen and presswomen who have devoted their life to their vocation for little pay. They must have invested a great deal of hope in the new paper, at great personal risks. I admire their spirit and their idealism, and God knows how we need spirited idealists.

Unfortunately, I am haunted by the suspicion that it is political ownership of the media in Malaysia, instead of free commercial competition or editorial excellence, that controls the character of any newspaper in the ultimate analysis.