Tonight, Malaysiakini will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a big bang. I am sure the dining will be fine and the entertainment amusing, but like my fellow columnist Dean Johns , I will not be able to attend. I too will celebrate the occasion in spirit.

While we are still on this spirit of congratulatory joy, I would also like to pay tribute to the columnists who have travelled this long and sometimes arduous journey with co-founders Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran. I believe that we Malaysiakini columnists have also contributed in no small measure towards building the distinctive journalistic identity on this website.

Of course, we all know that news is the hard currency of journalism while opinions are free. Every day for the past 10 years, dedicated reporters, journalists and news editors work tirelessly to bring the latest news to their readers, often hours before they appear elsewhere.