Why am I not surprised the MCA president and transport minister, Dr Ling Liong Sik, has banned a malaysiakini reporter from his press conference yesterday? He behaves true to form: When the message is bad, kill the messenger. ([#1]'Malaysiakini' barred from minister's PC[/#], Dec 6)

It is done not in confidence but in fear: Fear of what the reporter would ask, fear of what stupidity he would spout, fear of the fear that the world around him crashes.

At one time, cabinet ministers seduced reporters into their midst with seeming insights. But there was an important proviso: he or she did not breach the convention that they are not put in a bad light in their newspapers. You were not invited into this exalted group if you were unreliable.

This would work so long as the reporter excluded thinks he or she is at a loss. If the reporter does not care if he or she is in or out, the ploy fails. The Great Man accepts you for what you are: prickly, questioning, an equal.

It is at this point that he or she is of most value to the organisation he or she represents.

Malaysiakini is a newspaper unlike any other. It does not accept official statements at face value, and does its own checking. It finds out what is happening and prints them, even if it varies widely from the official view.

Badge of honour

With a limited staff and resources, it does far better than organisations with unlimited funds and reporters. And what it writes upsets those in power.

What Ling does not know is that his ban on malaysiakini redounds on him than on the reporter or malaysiakini . It is a badge of honour one wears with pride that one is barred from a press conference or ministry for what one wrote, or for the respect the organisation one works for has.

But press freedom in Malaysia is viewed as the right of the press to report and comment favourably on government achievements and attack the opposition.

Anyone who tries to show the other fellow also has a story to tell is ignored or sidelined. If malaysiakini succeeds in a fraction of what it sets out to do, it should expect it and its reporters to be sidelined.

There will be more such occasions, which would buff its reputation than have it cower in fright and fear.

In the 30 years I have reported on Malaysian and Asian affairs out of Kuala Lumpur, I have faced the restrictions that malaysiakini reporters face.

I was expelled from Singapore when the paper I worked for then, the Singapore Herald, was shut down by the Singapore government in 1971, a ban lifted a decade later and re-imposed in 1990, and one which remains.

Bodily removed

In the 1970s, the then MCA president, Tun Tan Siew Sin, had me physically ejected from a press conference I had been invited to by name.

When I refused to leave, the finance ministry secretary-general (and later cabinet minister), Chong Hon Nyan, and a senior official, Ramon Navaratnam, bodily picked me up and threw me out of the room.

Chong called me at home that night to apologise for what he had to do; Navaratnam, the next time we met at a function. Both remain good friends to this day.

There were red faces all round, and after the briefing, one senior official whom I barely knew gave me a critical appreciation of what transpired, and I had a better story than if I had been present.

It was almost automatic to be denied permission to a press conference that I eventually stopped going to it unless I needed to talk to someone attending it.

That opened doors I could not have otherwise. That still holds. I am often given valuable insights by the very people I write critically about.

All of us have our faults, lots of it. But if you hold your ground, you would be respected, if grudgingly.

The setbacks malaysiakini has faced since it began a year ago show it attempts what it set out to do. Because of this, more people, especially in power, would want to tell you their side of the story on background.

One expects, as a reporter, to be criticised by both sides. But this necessarily means a commitment to stand up and be counted. When both reporter and newspaper would, no force can break that without mud on their face.

That Ling should do this to a reporter when his MCA controls a leading newspaper, The Star , speaks volumes of the MCA's commitment to press freedom. One should assume the MCA's interest in The Star is not to have a good newspaper but to make money.

The mud is not on malaysiakini . It certainly is on Ling.

MGG PILLAI is a freelance columnist. He also runs the Sangkancil discussion group.