On June 4, selangordaily.com in its 'conflict' with agendadaily.com over the controversy surrounding Puteri Umno and why former Puteri exco member Erma Fatimah resigned, published an opinion in its forum that Malaysiakini.com is an 'opposition' website.

Two days later, another person in the forum claimed that malaysiakini was funded by Umno's supreme council member(s) to 'run down' Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I have always regarded malaysiakini as an independent news website for the cyber community. It has been my must-read 'paper' since my enthusiasm waned for the mainstream media.

Until this letter is written, no denial or clarification has been posted by malaysiakini. Can somebody from malaysiakini clarify?

Editor's note: Since malaysiakini was launched three years ago, we have been accused of being sponsored by all sorts of characters. Some say we received funds from infamous currency speculator George Soros. Others think that we are sponsored by the opposition. Even within the opposition, there is no consensus on who our paymasters are — some DAP members believe that we are backed by Keadilan.

Suffice to say that malaysiakini is surviving mainly from the income which we make from the website. We have recently converted malaysiakini into a partially pay-site. Our future survival will depend on whether readers are willing to fork out RM10 a month to access malaysiakini contents.

Don't judge us based on one or two news reports which we published. Judge us on our three-year record and the 20,000 articles we have posted.