THE annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 14, 1988, featuring Singapore's then-prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, caught my attention because he said in a speech there that the Philippine press essentially "failed the Filipino people."

For context, Lee had gone to the convention to respond to issues concerning the relationship between the (Western) press and the state of Singapore during his regime. Among the matters raised by Norman Pearlstine, then-managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, were:

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