One evening recently in Rangoon, my friend Ko Ye (not his real name) arrived at the apartment where I was staying, brandishing the latest issue of the weekly newspaper he runs. It was, he announced with great fanfare, a landmark edition: For the first time ever, government censors had allowed him to run a photo of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s most prominent dissident, on the cover. The edition also included other previously banned topics: political analysis of U.S. relations with Burma and an article about Martin Luther King that contained the taboo phrase “human rights” in the headline. “And here,” said Ko Ye, jabbing another headline, “is the first time I’ve been able to write about the 2.2 trillion kyat budget deficit. This is real news!”

I first met Ko Ye ten years ago, and his tireless struggle to squeeze the truth past government censors has taught me much about life under a military dictatorship. If you want to understand Burma, he told me then, “you must look for what’s missing and learn how to find the truth in these absences.” The advice seemed counterintuitive, but it worked. In the curtailed reality of an authoritarian state, the truth of events is rarely out in the open for everyone to see; rather, it can be found in the sentences and stories excised by the censor’s pen or in the voices of people silenced by imprisonment or intimidation. I used to love listening to Ko Ye’s tales about sneaking elements of the truth past the censors by burying contraband facts deep within seemingly innocuous articles or constructing florid sentences with double meanings.

These days, however, Ko Ye has less need for such antics. Ever since the country’s longtime dictator, Than Shwe, stepped aside early last year, a remarkable thaw has appeared to be underway in Burma—and journalists have been among the prime beneficiaries. In June 2011, the government announced that magazines focusing on sports, technology, entertainment, health, and...