I refer to the letter 'A little bit of research goes a long way'.

My knee-jerk response to this most polite note is to equally politely concede Ram Karthigasu's right to criticise me for any unintended unfairness that I may have committed in my column, including any underserved slight on the team that won the Rookie of the Year Award.

But I must respectfully insist that the Bernama organisation itself is clearly an organ of the BN government propaganda, and the Perdana Peace Foundation is a blatantly Muslim-biased creation of the flagrantly anti-Semitic and anti-West Dr Mahathir Mohamad and that neither in principle deserves any respect as source of responsible journalism.

As for the ‘unethical journalism that took place in Australia just before the illegal invasion of Iraq', certainly none of it was written by me, as I was and am a vigorous opponent of the US-led, Australia-assisted attack on Iraq.

Nor did it appear in the newspaper I regularly read, the Sydney Morning Herald. I assume Karthigasu must be referring to elements of the rabid-right-wing Murdoch-owned press, of which I am and always have been as vocal a critic as I am of organisations like Bernama and the Perdana Peace Foundation.