Filipino-American journalist Maria Angelita Ressa was declared Nobel Peace Prize laureate on October 8, 2021, for battling valiantly to "safeguard freedom of expression." She is considered a great defender of the free press worldwide, and she has fought tirelessly in the Philippines for the freedom to express her mind. The Nobel Peace Prize is also a de facto recognition that Ressa has become a one-woman incarnation of the problems, risks, and promises of journalism in the age of social media.
The Philippines, home to Ressa's fiercely independent digital news company Rappler, is one of the world's deadliest countries for journalists, with press freedom abuses increasing substantially since Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016. Rappler has criticized the Duterte regime's notorious, violent anti-drug campaign.
The campaign has resulted in many deaths that now resemble a war against the citizens. Ressa and Rappler have also revealed how other people use social media to disseminate false information, bully opponents, and distort public dialogue. Duterte has wrongly accused Rappler of being a CIA-funded "fake news outlet."
Meanwhile, Ressa raises the alarm about the global threat to democracy posed by Facebook—a significant vector of viral disinformation and hate speech, and corporation Ressa blames for her situation. She has suffered considerably for her effort, including arrests and jail, as well as constant harassment and threats.
Their celebration as Nobel laureates at this time in history should motivate world efforts to combat disinformation, combat extremism, and strengthen democracy by safeguarding crucial independent media and the journalists who produce it. Her position best exemplifies the confluence of political, technological, commercial, and legal challenges stifling contemporary independent media and endangering the lives of journalists worldwide. As only the 18th woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, this honor also underlines the experience of women journalists, who are at the epicenter of danger on the new front line in the global fight for media freedom and journalist safety.
A working journalist has not received the Nobel Peace Prize in 85 years. While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, German editor Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936 "for his ardent love for the freedom of thought and expression and his great contribution to the cause of peace." Previously, he was once guilty on a criminal libel conviction for his efforts to reveal Germany's secret rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
Maria Ressa has been a journalist in Asia for 35 years and co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site in the Philippines that is leading the fight for press freedom. Ressa was awarded Time Magazine's 2018 Person of the Year, one of the magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century for her bravery and fight against disinformation. She was also named one of the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2019 and one of Prospect magazine's top 50 thinkers in the world. She was named Journalist of the Year in 2020, as well as the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the Most Resilient Journalist Award, the Tucholsky Prize, the Truth to Power Award, and the Four Freedoms Award.
Before founding Rappler, Maria worked on terrorism investigations in Southeast Asia. She created and oversaw CNN's Manila Bureau for nearly a decade before moving on to the network's Jakarta Bureau, which she ran from 1995 to 2005. She is the author of Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda's Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism.
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Written by: Kim Andrei Nicomendez
Layout and Design by: Gerald Reyes
Source:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/11/maria-ressa-nobel-peace-prize-dmitry-muratov-journalism-media/
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