Nobel Prize for Maria Ressa, Dmitry Muratov and journalism

Nobel Peace Prize for journalists a sign of the times

Emil Guillermo
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines

Journalism is an instrument of peace. That's the message of the remarkable announcement that Maria Ressa has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Journalists cover those people who win those awards. Journalists aren't normally the actors in the high stakes drama of curing the world's ills.

That is, unless the world is a place where truth and freedom, the essential components of democracy, are threatened and diminished.

Unfortunately, we live in such a world. And that makes a journalist more than just a mere scribe or witness. Journalists are now elevated, actors in the public arena on behalf of the people, providing the truthful information an audience must have to exist in a free and open democracy.

That's why Maria Ressa is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ms Ressa beat out 329 other nominees and shares the award with journalist Dmitry Muratov, who has done in Russia what Ms Ressa is doing in the Philippines - engaging in the "courageous fight" for truth and freedom in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin's strongman government that would prefer the public stays in the dark.

In honouring two journalists, the Nobel also serves itself and suddenly becomes 21st-century-relevant.

Giving journalists the prize is a far cry from, say, awarding a president who comes with power, expectations and, sadly, contradictions.

Giving it to politicians is tricky too because politicians, not journalists, really control the truth.

Awarding the Nobel to journalists like Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov makes sure the act of revealing the facts is still considered a virtue. It re-establishes a sense of value and worth in the job that assures free societies.

This is a prize for Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov. But it's also a prize for journalists all over who labour to expose and analyse truth and inform the world.

The prize comes when Ms Ressa and other journalists in the Philippines can use a boost.

The Philippine elections are coming up. The authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte has announced his retirement and cannot run again.

But the son of Ferdinand Marcos, Bongbong, has announced his desire to run. With the legacy of a dictatorship? And then there's boxer Manny Pacquiao putting in a bid as well.

Making sure democracy survives her country's upcoming elections will require the hard work of accountability journalists like those at Ms Ressa's Rappler.

A Nobel Peace Prize should motivate them all to keep doing the important work of seeking the truth.

A Nobel boost for fearless journalism

Kamal Ahmed
The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their relentless struggle to protect freedom of expression.

In addition to independent journalism, the issues that have inevitably surfaced with the awards of Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov are no less important.

First, both the countries of the award-winning duo have been under authoritarian rule for quite some time, and there have been reports of serious violations of basic human rights - including violence, illegal detentions, enforced disappearances and killings.

In the case of the Philippines, the committee cited the unusually high death toll of President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug campaign as "the equivalent of a war against the country's own people", and called Ms Ressa a "fearless defender" of the freedom of expression.

Ms Ressa and the investigative online portal she co-founded, the Rappler, have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse.

Similarly, in Russia, Mr Muratov, in his newspaper Novaya Gazeta, highlighted corruption, police violence, illegal arrests, electoral fraud, and the Russian military's troll factories for harassing and intimidating opponents via social media.

Due to these works, the newspaper has been subjected to various forms of harassment, threats and violence. Since the newspaper's inception, six of its journalists have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed for writing about the Chechen war. Despite all the violence and threats, Mr Muratov has allowed his journalists to practise independent and objective journalism.

Ms Ressa and Mr Muratov have won the award for the first time for fighting for press freedom, and through that strengthening democracy and building peace.

There is no doubt that there are transnational organisations working for the protection and promotion of journalism, and journalists are feeling enormous pride for this award due to professional fraternity. It also rejuvenates all of us who are working in the news media.

Truth matters

Editorial
The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

It has been a tough couple of decades for everyone in professional journalism, particularly in recent years.

The old way of doing business was rendered obsolete once tech giants found an ingenious way to use algorithms to make advertising more targeted and effective for businesses. With less ad money going to pay for good journalism, many media outlets had little option but to downsize or shutter their operations.

Given that the ad algorithms incentivise "engagement" and clicks, media outlets had to resort to producing non-traditional content that could scandalise loyal readers who had been with them for decades.

So as media companies struggled financially, we were seeing a concurrent trend of some media companies going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories or peddling sensationalism just to stay afloat.

At the same time, mainstream media also had to deal with external pressure from politicians of the far-leaning populist ilk, using mud-slinging tactics like calling them "fake news" whenever the media didn't cast them in a favourable light.

As if labelling an entire media company "fake news" wasn't enough, other so-called world leaders moved to jail journalists or put them at real risk of physical danger, even threats against their lives.

And it is against the backdrop of this twin assault from business and politics that we celebrate the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for keeping the torch of press freedom burning.

Let us hope this serves as a wake-up call that we should not take professional journalism for granted, and that truth matters.