Barely three months old and Malaysiakini.com, Malaysia's first web-based daily newspaper, is already creating waves. Most recently, its style of reporting has generated considerable discussion and debate, particularly as regards what constitutes an "alternative" newspaper, the need to be "objective", and the desirability of being "non-partisan".

Unfortunately, however, much of these discussions has been conducted pretty much in a vacuum, divorced from social, political and economic realities, anchoring themselves to rather tenuous ideal-type situations.

In this regard, I am reminded of a young friend, a mainstream journalist, who still maintains that her job essentially is to "tell it as it is", without taking sides, without making judgements. Ah, the impetuousness and naivete of youth.

The first point that needs making in this regard is that people who become journalists (or broadcasters, film makers, even advertisers) do not come into the business ideologically pure, as it were. Plain and simple, we all carry ideological baggage with us - in our everyday dealings and at our workplace.

And ideological baggage here does not simply consist of making a conscious political choice between PAS and Umno, but more about taking as read, about accepting, for example - often unconditionally, often without much thought - the laws of the so-called free market, as opposed to, say, spiritual or moral guidelines.

And, secondly, just as the journalist carries ideological baggage, so does the newspaper or broadcasting organisation exist and operate within certain ideological parameters.

All mainstream newspaper organisations in Malaysia, for example, operate to make profits. They are in the business not only of selling newspapers, but also of selling advertising space in their newspapers. So, they are constrained by the ideology of the marketplace.

Of course this is not all. They are also circumscribed by politics and politically-inspired legislation. The overall consequence, nonetheless, is that these organisations do not operate in a vacuum. They have their norms and values and ways of doing things determined not by some mystical Supreme Being, but, more realistically, determined by man- (and woman-) made laws and principles purposefully designed to benefit some to the detriment of others.

In this kind of environment, an environment which is far from "objective" or "neutral" and, instead, is skewed, warped and imbalanced, any endeavour to be "objective" on the part of journalists is, of course, doomed to fail. This is precisely because notions of "objectivity" would have - indeed have - been predetermined, and predetermined in such a way as to uphold the status quo.

And into this scenario comes an entity like Malaysiakini.com, currently free from the political and economic logic constraining the mainstream media but, nonetheless, still handicapped by some of the hurdles put up by the establishment.

It was initially - and self-consciously - touted as "an Internet media project featuring independent news coverage, investigative journalism and in-depth news analysis (and) conceived by journalists who are unhappy with the sorry state of our mass media".

Three months later, Malaysiakini.com has since been dubbed an "alternative", "oppositional", "critical", even "anti-establishment" Malaysian news website although, to be honest, there has been no deliberate attempt on its part to be that way.

Indeed, much of the way Malaysiakini.com has thus far become has been due to circumstances outside its control. Its journalists have still not received official accreditation to enable them to attend government press conferences.

Hence, it is by accident more than by design that much of its main news do not come from so-called "official" sources, but from alternative, often oppositional or marginalised, sources.

But that in no way makes Malaysiakini.com - or any news media - "oppositional" or "anti-establishment". It is only perceived to be such by those of us who have grown fat and inactive on an unhealthy and one-sided diet of "official news".

Indeed, before we hurl accusations of "bias" and "non-objective", let us first turn such accusations on their head, and locate the position from which we are making these accusations. Invariably we will find that we make these accusations principally because we ourselves have been socialised into accepting certain things as biased and subjective, although from another perspective they may not be. That is precisely how ideology works.

The bottom line is that a news medium like Malaysiakini.com ought to be given the chance to develop at its own pace and in ways that may or may not make it turn out to be completely different from the mainstream media. That is what variety is all about.

As it is, there is a world of a difference between, say, New Straits Times and Harakah. By the same token, it would be awfully inane to lump Harakah and Aliran Monthly crudely together as "oppositional" media since there is a world of a difference between the two media as well.

To do so would be to fall into the trap set by the regime over the past few decades - a trap that forces us to see the world simply and erroneously in terms of binary opposites, of "us" and "them", of "good" and "evil", of "official" and "opposition".

Life is much more complex than that. And news media, including Malaysiakini.com, ought to reflect and assess that complexity. So, instead of barking up the wrong tree asking for "more government news", "less opposition news", more photographs of Mahathir Mohamad and less of Lim Kit Siang, from Malaysiakini.com or any new media, let us instead look - and demand - for more in-depth, quality news.

Indeed, whether the news is from the "mahligai" in Putrajaya or the padi fields of Baling, Kedah, what is important surely is that the event is adequately, critically, and professionally covered.