ABSTRACT

As already demonstrated, journalists in the current study face all kinds of constraints: risks during covering news, troubles after publishing critical stories, story bans, and no or little real impact. These journalists want to make a difference, and yet have their hands tied by political and economic interests. They have the desire to make the country a better place, but time after time, they see corruption, unfairness, and injustice being repeated, even getting worse, and cannot help but doubt the virtue of the entire system, even losing faith in the country. Consequently, most journalists in this study expressed confliction, frustration, and disappointment to various degrees. In practice, many journalists found ways to compromise and reconcile their ideals with the not-so-ideal reality, as discussed in this chapter.