But the difference from this year's function to the previous years is the different views of the trade that emerged. Yes, it was within well-defined positions, each at loggerheads with the other. But it reflects also concerns about how the press strives out of its shackled past. For the first time this year, journalists talked about the trade, and how it has failed them. This is the first step to understanding the importance of a free press.
All journalism is a viewpoint.
How on reports an event is subjective, though constrained by how it should be portrayed. In the Philippines, it is so free, and with few constraints, it is almost disbelieved, that one must reach three or four newspapers to get a sense of what goes on. In Thailand, with the freeing of censorship, it brought forth a lively media so berefet of controls and decorum that it had to be reined in. The Indonesian media, freed from the shackles of the Sukarno and Suharto epochs, has survived best of all. This is partly because Indonesian journalism had a clear understanding of what is the national interest, and it was given the utter freedom to contribute to it.