When Southeast Asia's Press Freedom Hangs by a Thread
An eyewitness account from inside the ASEAN For the Peoples Conference journalism panel
by Hree Putri Samudra, TAF Correspondent for Indonesia
JAKARTA – Sitting in the front row as a discussant for The ASEAN Frontier, I could feel the tension before anyone spoke. The Sultan Hotel’s ASEAN 4 room buzzed with that particular energy you get when people who’ve been through hell are about to tell the truth about it. The air conditioning hummed overhead, but it couldn’t cool the heat of what was coming. Around me, civil society representatives clutched notebooks, phones ready to record. This felt different from other panels.
Four veteran journalists sat on stage, each carrying decades of battles across Southeast Asia’s press freedom wars. This wasn’t going to be polite conference talk. I knew that the moment Kavi Chongkittavorn leaned into his microphone, his weathered face serious, hands clasped like he was preparing for confession.
The War Inside Ourselves
“The war is in ourselves, journalists of ASEAN,” Kavi said, his voice cutting through the diplomatic niceties like a blade. He gestured sharply with his right hand, slicing the air. “We have to create a regional narrative. We fail completely.”
The Bangkok Post columnist didn’t come to Jakarta to make friends. His first diagnosis was surgical: ASEAN media cultures are so wildly diverse they’re almost incomparable. But then he twisted the knife, leaning forward in his chair. Thai media is soft on the outside, but “you die slowly.” Indonesian media? “Big, bold, spicy on the outside. Bad, diffuse, hot inside. I love Indonesian media better.”
The room laughed nervously. Kavi wasn’t joking. His expression never changed.
His third point landed like a slap. “I am the only madman” still trying to build ASEAN press solidarity, he said, spreading his arms wide in exasperation. The problem isn’t just government censorship anymore. In Thailand, journalism has become a substitute for opposition politics because real opposition parties are weak. “Journalists don’t buy. They just jump.”
Bambang Harymurti, sitting next to him, nodded with the weariness of someone who’s watched this play out for decades. The Tempo board member’s shoulders sagged slightly as he spoke. He’s seen Indonesia’s press freedom ranking slide from “free” around 2006 to “partly free” ever since. Same story across the region: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines all stuck in the same category while South Korea leaped ahead economically.
“Countries that successfully jail corrupt former presidents develop faster, get richer,” Bambang said flatly, his voice matter-of-fact. Thailand and Malaysia have done it. The Philippines too. Indonesia? “We are left behind.”
The Survival Economics
When moderator Anggi M. Lubis asked about Tempo’s business model, Bambang dropped the pretense, his hands opening in a gesture of surrender. “Freedom of the press is for those who own it,” he quoted. The real threat isn’t the government anymore – it’s media owners tied to oligarchs.
But he’s found hope in direct subscriber support. When Tempo criticized former president Jokowi and faced black propaganda attacks, something unexpected happened. Subscribers who’d initially believed the attacks later realized Tempo was right. They paid for one-year subscriptions to make amends.
“We more than doubled our subscription base,” Bambang said, a rare smile crossing his face. “People you know, at least I see, appreciate what we do.”
He pointed to South Korea’s Hankyoreh newspaper as the model: 50,000 citizens donated to create an independent paper after 100 editors resigned from oligarch-owned media. Journalists there accept half the salary of corporate newspapers because they want editorial impact over money.
Amy Chew, the independent Malaysian journalist, brought this reality home hard. She gestured toward herself with both hands. “Before we came in here, Angie asked why I always wanted to be an independent journalist. I told her: it means you’ll be very poor. That’s what it means. You’ve got no insurance, nothing.”
But Amy’s warning went beyond finances. She talked about geopolitical pressure, not just political pressure. In great power competition, subtle influences shape which candidates certain powers want to win elections. “It’s so subtle, sometimes you don’t even know it,” she said, her voice dropping to almost a whisper.
The AI Panic
The conversation shifted when John Nery from Rappler brought the technology question down to earth with an analogy his students understood: “You want to lose weight, you can go to the gym, or you can take a shortcut. You cannot entrust writing to AI.” He made a weighing gesture with his hands, balancing the options.
Amy jumped in with a warning that made the young journalists in the room squirm. “If you use AI too much, you will not even have grammar anymore. You will forget the spelling. You will be totally beholden to the machine.” She counted on her fingers as she spoke, each point deliberate.
Kavi had his own method of resistance. “Somebody can write in my style now with AI,” he admitted, shaking his head in disbelief. So he deliberately uses Thai words and phrases in his English columns to confuse algorithms. “My editor says, ‘you stupid idiot, I know what Thai words mean.’ But I deliberately use Thai sentences to confuse the algorithm.” He chuckled, but his eyes stayed serious.
The message was clear: AI has no spirit. Journalists do. The question is whether we’ll surrender that spirit for convenience.
Questions From the Floor
When my turn came as The ASEAN Frontier discussant, my heart rate picked up. I’d prepared this question, but sitting in that room, feeling the weight of these veterans’ experiences, it suddenly felt inadequate. Still, I stood up, microphone in hand, and asked about key opinion leaders and information fragmentation – how do we make information more trustworthy when so many voices compete for attention?
The question hit something real. Amy immediately leaned forward, her energy shifting. She talked about Myanmar, where scam centers have trafficked over 100,000 people from across Southeast Asia, stealing billions from ordinary citizens. “Myanmar is so much closer to us than Gaza,” she said, her voice urgent. “Unfortunately, the situation makes it so difficult for news to come out.”
A student from ISAFIS raised the case of Indonesian investigative newsrooms receiving threats after publishing sensitive stories. “Are we moving toward a connected regional media community, or are we still fragmented?” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word.
John Nery proposed something concrete: ASEAN campus journalism exchanges. He gestured broadly, as if drawing connections across the region. “Campus journalism is real journalism,” he insisted. “Filipino youth struggling through corruption crises would like to know what’s happening in Indonesia.”
Kavi and Bambang reminisced about decades of trying to build people-to-people media connections. The ASEAN Press Council. Cross-border investigations between Tempo and Taiwanese media. “We share stories. They get material from Indonesia, we get material from Taiwan. It makes business sense,” Bambang said, his hands moving as if passing documents between countries.
But the financing isn’t sustainable. Networks fade. “We should not give up,” Bambang said, his voice gaining strength. “With digitalization, it’s actually the most appropriate time to create this network again.”
What Dies When Press Freedom Dies
Walking out of that hotel room, I thought about what Bambang said early on about Indonesia being “left behind.” Not just economically, but in accountability. When press freedom erodes, corruption follows. When journalism dies, democracy rots from the inside.
The Philippines has been “patient zero in the disinformation wars” since 2016. The Marcos family built their comeback through YouTube, creating parallel information infrastructure while traditional media struggled. Malaysia fines independent outlets half a million ringgit over reader comments. Myanmar’s journalists disappear into prisons.
And everywhere, the money is running out. Facebook and Google took 80 percent of advertising revenue, Bambang said. Young people get news from TikTok, not newspapers. Veteran journalists like Amy make “tremendous personal and financial sacrifices” to keep working.
But something else stuck with me from that evening. When Indonesia’s recent protests erupted, people across ASEAN sent food donations to delivery drivers. A Thai guy started it on Twitter, and it spread organically. That’s the power of regional solidarity when it works.
The four journalists on that stage have spent decades fighting for that kind of connection. They’ve failed more than they’ve succeeded. But they’re still fighting.
“The quality of a journalist depends deep inside you,” Kavi said near the end, tapping his chest. “AI has no spirit. You have spirit.”
The question isn’t whether that spirit will survive the next decade. The question is whether the institutions, the business models, the networks that support it can survive long enough for that spirit to matter.
Because if they can’t, Southeast Asia will lose more than its press freedom. It’ll lose its ability to hold power accountable, to investigate corruption, to tell its own stories to the world. And once that’s gone, everything else follows.
The panelists posed for photos with their AFPC certificates as the room emptied. Bambang joked that government attacks actually boost Tempo’s subscriptions. Amy reminded everyone that financial sacrifice is real. John talked about building community connections.
And Kavi? He was already thinking about his next column, probably planning which Thai phrases to throw in to mess with the algorithms.
In a region where truth is getting harder to pin down, maybe that’s enough. For now.
Edited by Alan J. M. Bron, Frontier Analysis Editor
