Crusading Filipino American journalist nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Maria Ressa, advocate for press freedom.

A Filipino American crusader for press freedom was nominated for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

Maria Ressa, the Chief Executive Officer of Rappler, a Philippine-based website, was nominated for the Nobel by a Norwegian politician and opposition Labour party leader Jonas Gahr Støre.

Støre said she nominated Ressa along with the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders for the prize because the work they do to protect freedom of the press.

“In today's world, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists are the two foremost organizations for promoting media freedom and protecting journalists. A Nobel Peace Prize for these organizations will be a recognition of the work they do, and it will recognize the thousands of journalists who report on conflicts,” Støre said in a statement.

In Ressa's case, Støre added, “She is thus both a symbol and a representative of thousands of journalists around the world. The nomination fulfills key aspects of what is emphasized as peace-promoting in Alfred Nobel's will. A free and independent press can inform about and help to limit and stop a development that leads to armed conflict and war.”

Ressa and the online news site Rappler that she co-founded in 2012, have been under attack by the regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for articles critical of some of his policies, especially the bloody war on drugs that gave carte blanche for vigilante groups and law enforcement to employ extra-judicial killings.

Upon hearing of the nomination, Ressa tweeted: "10 criminal charges, 10 arrest warrants in less than 2 years. Yup. #JournalismIsNotACrime #HoldTheLine oh, this year, I hit 35 years in journalism #TrackRecord." 

Ressa was brought to the U.S. at the age of ten by her mother and step-father, whose last name she adopted. She graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude with a major in English.

Time magazine named her one of the magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2018 for her efforts against the use of misinformation and lies to twist minds against the trute and trying to get social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter to monitor its websites against trollers and fake news.