Yangon Utd chairman Pye Phyo Tayza watching his team (REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun)

By Andrew R.C. Marshall

A relaxation of media controls is among the many surprising reforms Myanmar has seen over the past year. Yet critical reports about the tycoons who got rich under the former military junta are still routinely cut by government censors, as I discovered while co-writing our Special Report on Myanmar Inc with Jason Szep.

“It hasn’t been easy for local papers to write about the cronies and how they got rich,” said Thiha Saw, a veteran journalist who edits the business monthly Myanma Dana.