Regarding the reference to The Star as "toilet paper", Choong Tat Meng does have a point. It's rather unfair to describe The Star as "toilet paper" in the Malaysian context and in the context of the media in general in this country. Which paper doesn't deserve that accolade then?

But in the wider context of international media, I could imagine far worse expletives hurled at the paper for the way it reported several important issues, including some like education.

On MCA matters, the skewness was very open and clear  instead, look at the way the bosses at Huaren bulldozed and bullied their way through the Nanyang deal.

It reveals just one thing: There must be total control. It would take a great deal to convince the average reader that if that iron-fisted treatment can be meted out at Nanyang to any dissenting voice (or even anyone thought to be non-supportive) that The Star is all that fair and objective.

I don't know if The Star is better. It is certainly commercially more successful and probably has double the circulation of its nearest competitor. Whether that means it is more widely read as a newspaper and carries that much more influence may be a different matter. I know people who buy The Star and chuck the main (news) sections — they hang on to just the entertainment, etc. bits.

Again, whether these people are the rare and odd ones and whether their so doing does or does not put The Star at the same level of "reach" as the rest, one won't really know. But the fact that even one buyer does that must mean that he doesn't think much of the paper's reporting. Why does he continue to buy the paper then? Perhaps, like Choong, force of habit?