I refer to the letter Easier for Pak Lah to just replace Zam .

I don't want to get into the substance of the minister's gripe with the BBC but I have to take issue with the writer's generous observation that, 'Any person who understands the working of the British democracy in general, and the freedom of the press in particular, would not make such uninformed statements as reportedly made by the Malaysian Information Minister'.

I'm not sure who is the more uninformed here. Western press freedom is certainly an elusive, perhaps even a mythical creature. Al Liebling said that, 'Freedom of the press is guaranteed to those who own one', and in the UK that means that a handful of very wealthy owners dictate what is read in the press.

How else can one account for the virtual unanimity of views expressed in the newspapers and on TV? The difference is scarcely any bigger than that which exists between the New Straits Times and The Star . And at least those worthy organs don't have the temerity to bang on about the freedom and independence of the press.

Rupert Murdoch, for example, owns 267 newspapers around the world, and every last one of them urged on the invasion of Iraq. The editor of the only UK newspaper - The Daily Mirror - to oppose the war, was coincidentally no doubt, the only editor to get fired.

As for the BBC (the Blair Bush Corporation) it is hardly accurate for 'Overseas Malaysian' (why all these pseudonyms?) to say, '... it does not report to the British government. Witness the airings of the various scandals involving the British Labour Party and the British government by the BBC'.

On the contrary, the BBC board is appointed by the government, its licence and budget comes up for review every few years, and it has demonstrably bent over backwards to keep the government happy. What shred of dignity it once had disappeared with its appalling (and appallingly ongoing) non-coverage of the Iraq war.

Media studies consistently show the BBC to be the most pro-government of broadcasters. For example, in the lead up to the Iraq invasion it virtually barred sane anti-war voices from its screens (there's plenty of evidence, see the Glasgow and Cardiff Universities studies for

examples).

All of this has been apparent for some time, but after the Hutton Report (and the craven submission of the BBC to political pressure) I find it mystifying why anyone would think the BBC is anything other than an establishment tool.

Back in the 1930s, the founder director-general of the BBC, Lord Reith, noted in his diary, 'They know they can trust us not to be really impartial'. And times have only changed for the worse. Admittedly, the BBC is slicker and smarter than RTM. But the differences are much smaller than 'Overseas Malaysian' thinks.