For this, we can’t depend only on the posts of individual, unpaid bloggers. The goings-on of any modern society are too complex for solo part-timers to make sense of on their own. We also need organised, full-time teams of truth-seekers if we are to have any chance against powerful individuals and organisations with considerable capacity to conceal and deceive. That’s where professional news media are supposed to come in.

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Of course, many people have grown justifiably sceptical about news media’s claims to serve the public interest. Across Asia and the world, most journalism is produced by organisations whose professional missions are routinely compromised by their owners’ pecuniary or political interests. Unlike licensed professions such as medicine and law, in which group practices tend to be owned and run by the professionals themselves, most journalistic enterprises are not controlled by members of the profession but by businessmen – including increasingly diversified conglomerates whose main interests are in property, telecommunication and other non-media sectors.

In many cases, owners do not even bother to conceal conflicts of interest. Indonesian oligarchs, for example, make no bones about using their television news stations to promote their bids for elected office. The owners and managers of The Times of India, the world’s largest English-language daily, brazenly champion advertiser-friendly infotainment over public interest journalism.

But this is precisely why the fates of Malaysiakini and Rappler matter. Both were founded and continue to be controlled by veteran journalists. They have been structured to give their editors total professional autonomy internally, even if they can’t always protect themselves from external pressures.

Journalist-owned media are a vital part of a healthy, diverse media system. There is a smattering of them across the region, such as Hong Kong’s CitizenNews, Taiwan’s The Reporter and India’s The Wire. Most of these are non-profit organisations, reliant on grants and donations. Therefore, even within this small fraternity, Malaysiakini and Rappler are exceptional – they have aimed, with some success, to be commercially viable, even as they reject corporate ownership. Anyone who bemoans the domination of media by businesses where professional journalists are on tap, not on top, should be rooting for these two insurgent sites.

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Malaysiakini and Rappler are both progressive sites that bank on readers’ willingness to engage in public affairs. But that resource is also under threat as people’s attention is fatigued by incessant attacks on free speech and human rights. Political scientists have observed the world slumping into a kind of “democratic recession” in recent years. When citizens repeatedly see leaders getting away with obvious abuses, it is natural to become blasé about repression.

Malaysiakini editor Steven Gan sees this happening in Malaysia.

“We have a prime minister who has been alleged to be running a kleptocracy, and yet it is hard for anyone to dislodge him. Because of that, people are giving up, like there is no light at the end of the tunnel,” he told me. In ju-jitsu style, though, Malaysiakini hopes to use its current plight as a way to activate the public – hence its fundraising drive.

“It’s crisis and opportunity,” agreed Maria Ressa, chief executive of Rappler, whose supporters have so far been vocal in their outrage. “Even if we don’t get our day in court, if it’s not as fair as it should be, our government is sensitive to public opinion.”

Alongside their struggles against state coercion, each of these sites has to try to reverse the public’s growing dread that with power comes impunity. Their current travails are therefore not just a test for media freedom, but also of their societies’ capacity to hope. ■

Cherian George is a professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is writing a book on media and power in Southeast Asia