Maria Ressa

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa is the co-founder and CEO of Rappler, the digital news site in the Philippines known for its hard-hitting investigative journalism. As a journalist in Asia for more than 35 years, Ms. Ressa has also worked as CNN’s bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta. She has endured political harassment and arrests, and been forced to post bail ten times to continue her work. 

In 2021, Ms. Ressa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, in recognition of her efforts to safeguard freedom of expression. She has received a number of other international awards and recognitions for her work, including being named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2018, for her work on disinformation. In 2021, the jury awarding Ms. Ressa the Unesco/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize noted, “Maria Ressa’s unerring fight for freedom of expression is an example for many journalists around the world. Her case is emblematic of global trends that represent a real threat to press freedom, and therefore to democracy.”

Ms. Ressa is also the author of several books: How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future (2022), From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism (2013), and Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda's Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia (2003).