Fact-based journalism has been under siege as newsrooms worldwide struggle against the onslaught of misinformation, disinformation, and falling revenues. But the awarding of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, two renowned investigative journalists, is a boost to reporters and highlights the importance of quality journalism for democracy.
Monday, May 3, is World Press Freedom Day, a global day of recognition for journalists around the world, particularly those who are standing up for truth and revealing information in the public interest despite political intimidation, government oppression, and threats of violence.
This week’s Friday 5, where we round up our favorite reads from around the world in English, we found a helpful database that’s tracking government responses to COVID-19 with the help of 400 researchers, a multimedia project on how eight journalists from around the world are coping with reporting during the pandemic, and a piece on how autocrats are cracking down on independent news sites.
Investigative reporting is getting harder and harder as autocratic governments crack down on media and government-friendly oligarchs use the courts to silence independent voices. The Philippine online news organization Rappler and its CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa are experiencing this firsthand, as Ressa was convicted last week on baseless “cyber libel” charges.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network is outraged and alarmed by the conviction of our colleagues Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos for cyberlibel in a Philippines regional court. Maria Ressa, the founder and executive editor of Rappler, was the keynote speaker at the 2019 conference of GIJN, which represents 184 nonprofit investigative journalism organizations in 77 countries. She is a journalist of unquestioned integrity, representing the best of her nation’s long tradition of investigative reporting.
This year’s Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 23 to February 2 in Utah, includes four films which put journalism front and center. The films take viewers to Kenya, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, tackling the perils reporters around the world face.
By popular demand, we are publishing the prepared remarks that Rappler’s CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa delivered during a rousing keynote speech at the 11th Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Hamburg.
Before she could even start to speak, Maria Ressa received a standing ovation, which brought tears to her eyes. She was out on bail, and was forced to pay a travel bond in order to leave the Philippines and come to Hamburg, where she gave a keynote address to an auditorium full of fellow investigative journalists from around the world.
In the run-up to the 2019 Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Hamburg this September 26 to 29, we’re featuring one Global Shining Light Award finalist per day. Check out “Murder in Manila,” by Rappler.
Reporting on extrajudicial killings — murders carried out by state actors or by non-state vigilantes with the cover of state sanction — poses specific challenges to investigative journalists. Here are tips from two extraordinary reporters working in the Philippines: Rappler’s Patricia Evangelista and Reuters’ Clare Baldwin.
