MAY 20 — Last week, a Los Angeles-based radio show picked up a video news package I did for the Dutch news agency VJ Movement. 

The story was about being gay and Muslim in Malaysia and it was apt that This Way Out ran the story since they serve the gay community. 

I was obviously excited since it meant that I am now a celebrity in LA and can expect to be signing autographs in Hollywood soon. 

But the excitement fizzled when I actually listened to the show. My entire story was intact except for the interview with JAKIM director-general, Datuk Wan Mohamed. 

(The said episode of This Way Out can be heard here: http://bit.ly/eQAZTz) 

I had interviewed different people with liberal and conservative view points and Datuk Wan Mohamed, of course, was of the latter. 

His voice may have been more conservative than the rest, but it was equally as important since I wanted to show both sides of the story for better context. 

(The said video in its entirety can be viewed here: http://www.vjmovement.com/truth/913) 

This Way Out's producers must have taken it out because it didn’t support their agenda and this brings me to my issue of the day – pick and choose journalism. 

Basically, the term itself is self-explanatory. Journalists pick and choose what they want to appear in their stories that get presented to the public. 

It happens all the time and one prime example is the news from the Middle East where almost everything we see is related to violence and strife. 

Maybe it's because that is what people want to see, and so the media bombards the public with news of war and fighting in the region. 

So when I went to the Middle East to shoot my documentary I’m Muslim Too! in 2007, I stayed clear of all that and made a film about pop and youth culture instead, just to show that normal life still goes on in the region. 

As for This Way Out and my story on Malaysian gays, I decided to write them an e-mail explaining my position. 

I received a prompt reply from the producer, Lucia Chappelle, 

“. . . I actually did try recording the subtitles to mix into the piece. Unfortunately, especially since I was working alone with no male voice to use, I just couldn’t get it to sound right . . . it was just more confusing. I was also facing the problem that I needed to shrink the piece a bit to make it fit into our program. The time constraints made the parts with my sadly ineffective attempt to add the translation the most likely (although ultimately not the only) things to be cut — despite the fact that I realized that the government point of view provided important context. You’ve probably faced similar situations, when you have to reluctantly lose material that’s important to a story. I appreciate your understanding . . .” 

Yes of course, sometimes certain constraints also play a part in what gets to be in the media what is left out. But I believe that we must always try as best as we can. 

I guess we can never run away from pick and choose journalism. Even I am guilty of it when I choose not to go with the current trends and hot topics of the day. 

I know that I’ve been a big advocate of biased journalism and have even written articles about how I think that objective journalism is so passé. 

But the biased journalism I talk about is the kind where we present all the different facts and view points, and then making our case for why ours is the better one. 

At the end of the day, the public can never be forced to take on any particular view point. They still need to make their own decisions. 

And the best-informed decision they can make is when all the information is presented to them, no matter how biased the journalist is.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.