At the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, I’m on a panel that’ll debate the issue of “How Much Freedom is Enough for China.”

Obviously the crux of the question is defining terms — starting with what is China, and who among its 1.3 billion people are you talking about.

The answer to how much is enough is one thing if you’re an outspoken artist like Ai Weiwei, recently released from detention after reportedly confessing to economic irregularities. The answer is different if you’re an urban intellectual or if you’re an urban entrepreneur. And it starts to be really different if you’re a frustrated migrant worker or an impoverished farmer.

What you mean by freedom and what you want from your state really depends on who you are and what your circumstances are.

I first visited China around 1980. I reported from Beijing from 1991-4. And boy, with the perspective of 20 or 30 years, the amount of freedom now in China is extraordinary.

Of course, it is easy to focus on what’s not free.  You can’t challenge the Communist Party. You can’t call for democratic change or promote the Dalai Lama or issue a charter for reform without inviting serious trouble.

But in a country that has 500 million people on the internet, creating vast communities and inventing a torrent of content every hour of every day, there’s unprecedented freedom of expression for huge numbers of people.

Last night we honored our 2010 Journalists of the Year.  What a moving ceremony it was, and I am so proud of the achievements of our winners.

As I look back on 2010, my final full year as Reuters Editor-in-Chief, I’m struck by how journalists and news organizations have been challenged with a steady stream of high-impact, global stories. The 3,000 men and women of Reuters answered those challenges.

A devastating earthquake killed thousands in luckless Haiti, which has not yet completely risen from the rubble; an oil-rig explosion sent 200 million gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, roiling politics and markets for months; a debt-driven economic storm swept over Europe, threatening to sink markets and topple governments; a volcanic eruption sparked a transportation crisis; businesses and governments continued to recover from the 2008 financial crisis with new investments – and new regulations.

Through all of this, Reuters journalists told the world’s stories with speed and insight, making sense of an increasingly confusing and dangerous world.

I invite all of you to check out the winner’s profiles.

My heartiest congratulations to our winners!

How do I trust myself? Let me count the ways…

Global PR group Edelman told the World Economic Forum about its Trust Barometer and said that “Trust” in general had stabilised.

But that’s where the good news for me ended.

My industry, media, had a Trust tumble in the US and UK to small levels of trust never seen before – “How much do you trust media to do what is right?” The US is down to 27% and the UK 22%. Maybe I should try my hand at fiction instead!

There was a big Trust rise for media in China and Brazil but India had a big decline. Fascinating data but having spent many years pouring over Chinese newspapers a bit of a surprise to me.

As if my ego didn’t take enough of a hit from the media data, the authority data gave me (us?) another blow. The category “person like yourself” tumbled to the seventh most credible category, down from third in 2009. Why? Maybe in the world of hundreds of Facebook “friends” and thousands of Twitter followers, we’re no longer really sure who someone like our self really is. (Apologies to all my friends and followers)

Or maybe it is the modern twist on the old joke about not wanting to belong to a club that would have me as a member.

A few things struck me from the annual survey of CEOs that PwC (yup, PricewaterhouseCoopers likes big ‘P’, little ‘w’, big ‘C’) released at Davos this year.

The most obvious was that 48 percent said they were “very confident” of growth in the next 12 months – up from 31 percent last year. Pre-crash confidence again!

But I have to say, I wondered a bit about their crystal ball when 37 percent said they planned to shift sourcing to China — with cost being the most cited reason. With inflation looming and currency moves almost certain, that isn’t necessarily a bet I’d make. There are plenty of reasons to go to China — and I’ve staked my career on it since 1979 — but cost isn’t top of my list in 2011.

The other thing that caught my eye was that managing talent was top of the CEO agenda — higher even than managing risk, investment decisions, reputation or capital structure. But alas, for those hoping for a pay rise out of it — strategy number one was “use more non-financial rewards to motivate staff”. I’ll be sure to ask my CEO Tom Glocer for a pat on the head while we’re here together in Davos!

By David A. Schlesinger

Another year has sped by with more change and economic uncertainty throughout the global markets. From a journalist’s viewpoint, 2010 has been filled with some of the most dynamic and complex stories to cover — the euro zone debt crisis, the U.S. midterm elections, currency wars, heart-warming heroism such as the Chile miners rescue and heart-breaking tragedies like that of the Haiti earthquake.

As a news organization during these turbulent times, Reuters has invested aggressively in transforming our news priorities and coverage tactics to ensure we are meeting the needs of the 21st century professional audience. Our aim is to best understand your workflow — what news you use, when you use it and how we can package and present our stories to best suit your needs.

We have placed significant focus around the rapidly developing economies (RDEs) news coverage and the implications these markets have on your business. My senior editors and I held two invigorating RDE summits, one in China and one in Brazil, to hear from market specialists and our customers on how we can further improve our news coverage in these important markets.

2010 marked the launch of Reuters Insider, the innovative video platform delivering news, insight and commentary straight to Thomson Reuters desktops — recently hitting more than one million views. Now with Thomson Reuters Eikon, our customers have single sign-on access to Reuters Insider, making watching video news an integrated part of their daily workflow. If you haven’t done so already, I hope you’ll check it out.

We have taken a leap into enterprise reporting, examining the issues, themes and undercurrents that are shaping markets, ranging from the potential perils of high-frequency trading to drone warfare.  I am thrilled that the team has already won its first investigative reporting award from Bartlett and Steele.

Our core news file remains strong and I was also pleased when our IFR team won the FX Week Award for its exceptional coverage of the foreign exchange market through a year of turmoil.

Below is the keynote speech Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger delivered today to the International News Safety Institute

Death came screaming out of the sky on July 12, 2007.

Two Apache helicopter gunships operating more than 500 metres away from a group of men fired their 30 mm cannon and that was it.

Vast distances; destructive weaponry; nervous young soldiers intent on protecting themselves and their colleagues. Death came screaming out of the sky.

And who was killed?

“Hostile forces?”  “Insurgents?” “Anti-Iraqi elements?”

At those distances, who really knew?

Think back a century and news needs and news methods were completely different.

Just think that the first airmail flight between Britain and Hong Kong did not land until 1936. And yet today at my home in London I get a rich and vibrant stream of  news, photographs, stories and gossip from Asia into my home  via Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader and then all the more long-established methods of journalism.  It is a cornucopia.

But the problem with any over-flowing horn is that it is really only scarcity that creates the awareness of value.

And in fact, the profession of journalism is losing both value and respect.

The latest Gallup poll showed a record-high 57% of Americans saying they had little or no trust in the mass media to do what the media has always proclaimed to be its primary mission – to report fully, accurately and fairly.

Instead people look to the friends – their community – for information, for validation, for argument and for illumination.

What is great about 2010 is that technology has created a completely new concept of community. And it has given that community new powers to inform and connect.

Reuters is a news power house – our 2,800 journalists in 190 different bureaus around the world are dedicated to being the indispensable news source. News has been in our blood for more than a century and a half, but we’ve always been restlessly innovating and always looking to the future.

For in.reuters.com, the future is now.

This is our redesign, over a year in the making. That’s over a year of extensive discussions with people like you, our elite audience of business professionals, about what would make the site better and faster and easier to use for you as you drive business activity around the world.

We want this to be the world’s best website covering business and finance news, analysis, and opinion. Full stop.

We want you to be able to come for a quick glance at the top headlines, or a longer deep dive into a topic that’s important to you. We want you to scan the output of the 2,800 men and women or hone in on a favourite writer or photographer.

This site is for you; we want it to be your ticket to a wealth of news, information, and analysis presented in a cutting-edge format, including text, video, pictures, graphics, user interaction, and personalisation features (try the new toolbar at the bottom of every page).

Remember, too, that this is the front door of Thomson Reuters. In addition to the news you see here, Thomson Reuters is also the world’s leader in providing news, information, services, and technology to healthcare, legal, business, and financial professionals. What that means is that our journalism is professional grade, giving our users the inside edge needed to make important decisions.