I refer to the Malaysiakini report Journalist resigns over Najib 'manifesto' report.

The Malaysiakini reporter who wrote the 'Najib manifesto' story should not have resigned and her offer of resignation should not have been accepted by the editor-in-chief.

Malaysiakini should have taken responsibility (which they did), put out a correction and got on with it.

The reporter's only mistake was that she did not get the verification from Najib's office. Being only three months on the job, the responsibility for this mistake should also be shared by those who let the story go through.

The point is, the reporter did not cook up the story like what happened in the prestigious Washington Post some years ago when the paper won the Pulitzer Prize for a story concocted by one of its journalists.

For political stories and in the present circumstances, journalists can sometimes fall into scams engineered by spin doctors for politicians or by those out to undermine certain politicians.

These ever-so-eager spin doctors for or against certain politicians would sometimes 'plant' stories or start gossip which would then develop a life of their own. It’s up to the journalists to be on the look out.

Anyway, the saddest day for Malaysian journalism was when that senior journalist from a Bahasa daily accepted a 'ticket for life' award from a low-cost airline for writing nice articles about the airline.

If this is not a bribe I do not know what else is.

If this is the benchmark for Malaysian journalism, then we will soon see every Malaysian journalist wearing shirts with company logos like those RTM sportscasters who would gladly wear Telekom Malaysia shirts.

To make it merrier, if you tune in to a certain radio station, you will always hear their DJs singing a company's jingle every few minutes.

Question is, are DJs journalists or entertainers?

Editor’s Note: The said story was uploaded at 11.30pm on Sunday night. However, no other editors were informed or consulted on it.