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ince the first edition was put to bed near midnight 30 years ago, the people who bring you this newspaper have been on a constant deadline. The bedlam of producing a daily edition last night was no different than the inaugural effort three decades ago.

The faces have changed, the premises are better lit, the clatter of typewriters replaced by the smooth swish of processor driven computers and printing press running twice the speed of its predecessor a generation earlier.

Today'€™s crop of cub reporters knows nothing of the tribulations of 30 years past. The endless late nights, the fortitude of a vocation, the intimidations '€” be they coercion or the lure of '€œrewards'€.

And well they should not have had to endure the strife, for their challenge will be anew and no less complex. They will strive in an age where the norms of legacy journalism will be pressed to compromise.

The challenge is no longer just editorial demands of commercial interests and powerbrokers, but that of a public more demanding of rapidity than quality and the stress of relevance in a world where free speech is no synonym for quality of expression. A corrosive spirit laboring under a curse. Where victories no longer provide hope and those who must be defeated lose nothing of value.

Many of the decision-makers on our editorial floor were bred in the age of repression of the New Order era. Battle- hardened journalists who fought a defined '€œenemy'€.

Tomorrow'€™s generation faces an adversary less tangible in its form. They live in a time of mutual fraud, where the loudest, vilest and flashiest smile laud the day.

In this age when many have become mistresses of deceit, telling the truth can be a revolutionary act. And that act requires courage. Yet courage in a time of peace is scarcer to find than bravery in a time of war.

But we do not fear the future. While the people and technology have changed, the values that beset the first edition of The Jakarta Post remain indelible in the hearts of every editor, reporter, contributor and staff member that proudly identifies with the Post.

And it is all quite simple: all down to the 26-letters of the alphabet combined and crafted daily, which form the vindication of a free civil society. The same 26-letters used by the founding generation of journalists here 30 years ago.

Your support over the past three decades is the life blood of our courage.

We should not be idealized or enlarged beyond than the words printed in our humble pages. Every media organization claims a common idealism to the common good. But we especially hope you appreciate that the Post has been honest in its reporting and sincere in its mistakes.

We are delighted to have thrived over the years and we are even prouder that many of you have been with us for most of them.

American newspaper editor Horace Greely, said '€œjournalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you'€™re at it'€.

Hence we should also acknowledge those who have passed on '€” the men and women who exchanged comfort to bring news and relevance to life. For they knew, what we continue to do every night, that each deadline represents a lifeline of hope every morning.