There has been much noise and fury recently across a range of news outlets in this country about press freedom. "We want a free press" - you hear the journalists cry, and surely you think to yourself that is an entirely reasonable request of any administration, in any civilised country. But what is meant by the call for a free press? Is this a call to not be required like the rest of the people of Puntland to share the responsibility for establishing a civil and secure society? Is it really a call for journalists to be above the law and have the freedom to publish absolutely anything they want?

All Puntlanders should want and fight for a free press, but only with the understanding that press freedom carries with it an awesome responsibility, the responsibility to build a better society, not break it apart, to improve our knowledge, not fill the web and airwaves with lies and extremist nonsense. It is a responsibility that should be self imposed and self-regulated irrespective of any other legal requirements and treated as a great treasure to be protected and fought for, not something that we trash through irresponsible or lazy attitudes towards what journalism really is. We all need to ask ourselves what does a free press reasonably entitle us to? What can we expect of our journalists, reporters, news gatherers and editors?

We are entitled to fair, balanced, intelligent reporting - news stories that tell the facts, not a concoction of someone's imagination - sadly all too often you don't get that in this country and these are the reasons why.

Opinion pieces masquerade as news - how often do you read a news report that in reality is someone's personal views or beliefs? Real news is an unembellished factual reporting of events, no more and no less. An opinion piece is based on the factual reporting of events overlaid with a hopefully erudite analysis of the implications of this news. It is often told from a particular view-point, but a properly edited opinion piece flags to the reader the particular bias of the writer, so you can intelligently distinguish fact from opinion.

How often is the main story headlining a 'news' website actually an opinion laden piece supporting the particular views of the publisher/editor/clan that own that particular site. What is presented as the news of the day, is in reality mixing a little bit of fact with a lot of personal opinion which is then posted, all too often omitting the necessary headline 'opinion piece' or perhaps more aptly 'propaganda'

It happens the other way too - you read a piece on a website which is properly listed as an opinion piece and you and your friends whose thinking aligns with the writers views can be heard repeating the contents of this piece in all your subsequent discussions without perhaps making the distinction between what in the article was factual reporting and what was the writers interpretation and spin on the events or matter at the heart of their story.

Too often news outlets report only one side of a story - how often do you find that particular websites present the news of the day only from the perspective of a particular clan, religious or political action group. This is not good journalism because it is not balanced, reasonable or often even based in truth.

This is dishonest and lazy journalism that relies on the ignorance and bias of its readers. It relies on those readers not understanding that in order to find out the whole complex truth of a news report they will need to search more widely for the other side of the story to build up a picture of what really happened. You have to pity the reader who thinks an event did not occur simply because it was not reported on their favorite website.

Too often what reported is a gross distortion - news is different things to different people. For some news is telling a fanciful story with only a very slight association of facts to lend it credibility - this is the school of writing called 'don't let the truth get in the way'. Most often for these people the story is written with the sole purpose of being damaging to those they despise and oppose.

For some telling news is only telling the news that is favorable to their view of the world, distorted by issues of clan allegiance, political persuasion, or personal moral code. I call this school of writing 'the truth is only what I tell you'.

For some the news is simply a way of entertaining people - whether something really happened is irrelevant - this is the school of writing 'I can't be bothered with the truth, I'll make it up'. All these writers rely on their readers to be equally biased, one-eyed, gullible and un-informed, as they are themselves, so that their readership is wholly taken in and does not think to question the truth of what they read.

Journalists are confused about what their job is - yes even the journalists are to blame. How easy it is for a journalist to pretend they are doing their best to provide balanced reporting by simply interviewing people on opposite sides of an issue and regurgitating what they have been told word-for-word without any sense of context, fact checking or critical analysis. Not once in the process of the interview will the interviewee be challenged to back up their claims, provide credible examples of hardly credible accusations - and then it all gets put on line or across the airwaves without a hint of apology for such a limp attempt at journalism.

Why does this happen? Is it because journalists do not understand their job, lack training, lack professionalism? Probably a bit of all of these, too often when journalists fail the public and themselves, it is sadly because they have forgotten or never did know what being a journalist was about.

It is a journalists job to do research, to know the context of the story and get in there with the hard questions, make the interviewee accountable to their listeners and readers, after all they have a privileged access to our politicians, elders, leading citizens that the rest of us lack.

Good journalism and reputable journalists everywhere aim to be entirely inscrutable when it comes to their political, religious or any other affiliation - the reader should not be able to tell who they support, what their personal preferences are - it should be entirely a mystery. If they choose to disclose it or let it colour their writing or broadcasting, then they are an opinion writer or radio host - not a journalist.

Good journalism and reporting should be a quest to find out the facts by speaking to as many sources as possible, from all sides and angles of a story while also getting the news as quickly as possible to the public. A good news story tells you the facts, no more, no less. A good investigative piece reports the views from all sides of the story and points out where the inconsistencies and holes are between these differing versions. A good opinion piece lets the reader know it is someone's opinion and even acknowledges the basis of the writer's bias - it does not pretend it is news.

So next time you hear a journalist in this country cry out for a free press, ask yourself are they as much the problem as the solution? Are they serving all of us or only a single clan or group of people? Have they been diligent and responsible in their work, fair and balanced in their approach? Are they in fact a journalist or do they simply want to tell you a fanciful story? Ask yourself those questions as well.

When we all understand that we have the right to insist that journalists must take responsibility for doing their job properly and professionally, then we really have the right environment for an entirely free press. Sadly at the moment the majority are no better than story-tellers, fabricators and fanatics masquerading as journalists.