LC Chuah in his opinion article , 'Will the unwise who rule the world now listen?' on June 10, 2003, wrote that facts do not tend to reach the masses easily because "there is still the problem of getting that information. It is well known that the mass media is government-controlled."

Indeed, this seems very logical, but probably not always the case. An IHT correspondence (Paul Krugman) observed that during recent Iraq war, many Americans, in their efforts to find alternative and independent views, began turning to BBC for coverage of the war.

The paradox: "The BBC is owned by the British government, and one might have expected it to support that government's policies. In fact, however, it tried hard - too hard, its critics say - to stay impartial. America's television networks are privately owned, yet they behaved like state-run media."

Personally, I have been able to follow both television channels (both during the war and other times) and I can certainly testify to the above.

BBC attracts a fair share of viewers' (ie. taxpayers') criticism especially on some of it its less conventional productions. It is amusing to see is that BBC tends to be spectacularly honest and open about them. I hope the above offers some food for thought.