Reference is made here to the reportage of the Norjan Khan murder trial by The Star and the New Straits Times on July 13.

Whilst both newspapers reported that Norjan Khan asked Baria Mohamad to give Pakistani businessman Amir Khan (who was experiencing an 'impotency problem') a massage in Shangri-La's Hotel room 208 where she was later found murdered, there are two points of difference.

The first was that New Straits Times described Baria Mohamad as the 'assistant minister's masseuse" whilst The Star described her more officiously as an 'aide'. There is a big difference in meaning between the two expressions, the choice of words of which may shed light on the motives of the deceased who directed the arrangements.

Whilst both newspapers reported that she massaged Amir Khan's leg and waist whilst he was laying prostrate, The Star's version was more graphic and detailed if somewhat lurid.

According to The Star, Amir asked Baria to 'fix his impotency problem' whereupon she told him 'to think of me as a sister and I massaged his private parts and in a short while there was liquid coming out. I stopped'. These parts were entirely omitted by New Straits Times.

What is the reason for this omission by New Straits Times, and was The Star wrong here to report and not suppress saucy and sensational parts? Or was New Straits Times right to impose self-censorship or was being unnecessarily puritanical?

All I know is that one can get the unvarnished facts as they unfold at the trial. But not through the newspapers if journalists give their own interpretation of whether a person is an 'aide' or a 'masseuse' and selectively omits certain evidence as it was given at trial.

Did New Straits Times omit the parts reported by The Star because it judged the incident of 'curing the impotency' irrelevant in the context of the whole trial or was it to protect the morality of the Malaysian public and shield them from the shenanigans perpetrated by some public officials?

I reiterate that part of freedom of press is the right of the public to access to information which is of public interest and concern, and journalists are the agents to collect such information and to tell it in its unvarnished form to the public.

Of course, there are certain restrictions such as not reporting names of sexual crimes victims or sources who provide information besides matters affecting national security none of which is applicable in the matter under review.

Of late, there seems to be one more restriction especially after the sensational Noritta case - that the public should be shielded from matters of sex although these are already disclosed as a matter of public information in the courts.

It seems incongruous that the public attending the trial has access to this information but not the public at large through the media. It is argued here that if the information is really that sensitive to which public ought to be denied access, then the evidence should be given in camera.

What is insidious is that the censorship has not come from the authorities but from the journalists or editors themselves who have arrogated unto themselves the role of custodians of public interest and morality to confuse the public between a 'personal masseuse' and an 'aide'.

From the standpoint of journalistic ethics, there is more to be said in favour of transparent disclosure than selective censorship or selective interpretation of facts and choice of words.