If the search for justice can be seen as Tempo's "paraideology", in practical terms this meant that for Tempo journalists, being "balanced" in a system that was inherently unbalanced was not enough. "There was one incident I remember from early on," Goenawan said, "it was when Tempo was in Senen. The law editor reported a story, something very evenhanded. But then the side of the weak was overshadowed, simply because he was weak. And I discovered that being even was not enough. And we had a debate about it, whether we should be so impartial, so even, when the victims are very weak. And we changed the story. We killed that story. And so I think from then on we decided that being even was not enough. Because before the philosophy had been to cover both sides. And we discovered it was not so easy."

--- Janet Steele, Wars Within: The Story of Tempo,
an Independent Magazine in Soeharto?s Indonesia