Louise Williams, Jakarta – In the final days of the Soeharto regime, the Government made one last desperate attempt to maintain control of way the crisis was reported by ordering all television stations to submit their broadcasts for clearance to a Government-controlled "TV pool" which would ensure a "positive spin".
When the privately owned SCTV station broadcast an interview with the former environment minister, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, saying the cure for toothache was to "pull out the tooth, right down to the roots", the news editor was removed and the reporters were warned to take care.
Mr Soeharto's son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, who controls SCTV, was particularly angry that the journalists had refused to obey the government order.
But the crackdown was followed by an argument on the Internet, as SCTV journalists sought support for their stand.
At the same time – as not a single newspaper dared to join the campaign for the President's removal on their editorial pages – the Internet was buzzing with instructions on how to give food to students occupying the Parliament building, as well as alternative views of events.
When Mr Soeharto was forced to step down last month, more than three decades of media control appeared to collapse with him.
This week, news vendors on the streets were so overwhelmed with demands for new issues of magazines investigating the wealth of the Soeharto family that the cover price increased three-fold before photocopied issues were offered for the original price.
In the port city of Surabaya, hundreds of students forced their way into the SCTV office to demand station coverage for their demonstration against corruption and nepotism and their demands for local government officials linked to the Soeharto regime to stand down. The former president's son's station had to comply.
The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), an underground illegal organisation during the Soeharto era, is snowed under with membership applications from journalists.
Previously, journalists were required by law to belong to the one government-approved union and to attend regular education course on ideology. However, it is not yet clear the Indonesian media is really free.
"For years we lived like pariahs – people avoided us, feared us, rejected us and even sneered at us and called us "idealistically pretentious'," says the chairman of the AJI, Mr Lukas Luwarso.
"But it didn't matter. We didn't think we could achieve the utopia of freeing the people from repression, but at least we could set the press free from fear, and so we deliberately published information which was not acceptable in the mainstream media."
The AJI took a direct role in the reform movement, quietly training student leaders in how to make public statements and use the media.
This week the former editors of two banned magazines, Tempo and Detik, announced they were preparing to reopen, saying they could now make plans for a new Indonesian press "which is free, dignified and responsible to the community".
"Tempo will try to publish again, and together with the rest of the press community, honestly fight so the fresh wind can become a reality which will benefit the press community and the society at large," said Tempo's former editor, Goenawan Mohamad.
But the jubilation in the ranks of Indonesian journalists is tempered by the fact that the new Government has not yet introduced legislative changes which will free the press.
Existing laws have not yet been overturned which allow the Government to revoke the licence of any publication, as well as call on harsh security regulations if the publication is deemed to be threatening national security.
The new Information Minister, Mr Yunus Yosfiah, has promised journalists a freer hand, but it is not yet clear what that means. Mr Luwarso said the AJI was not optimistic.
"In fact, we are pessimistic and that's why we have to keep up the struggle. This is a new regime so it is only natural they make a lot of promises. But if their power is consolidated, we will down-trodden again.
"If you see where power lies in this society, it is with the military – and they have an attitude of concealment which does not fit in with an open press. That reminds us to be pessimistic."