Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today, a respected investigative journalist and foreign correspondent for three decades, has in recent times found herself to be the centre of a long-running news story in the Philippines.

Maria Ressa is Filipino by birth, but was raised in the US, excelling at

school and graduating from Princeton University. She returned to her homeland after the

People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship, and she was for many years a senior

CNN correspondent covering the Philippines and the wider region.

In 2012, she founded the Rappler Online News Organization to provide Filipinos with a new source of investigative independent journalism.

Since 2016, that has brought her into increasing conflict with the government of populist President Rodrigo Duterte.

Ms. Ressa has been accused of various crimes, and earlier this month she was convicted of libeling a wealthy businessman in a case dating back almost a decade.

She is currently out on bail pending an appeal and she insists that her experience is part of a wider picture of press freedom under threat

in a world of populist politics. Do the people of the Philippines or the wider world

care enough to safeguard independent journalism.

Well, Maria Ressa joins me now from Manila.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

Thanks for having me, Steve.

Let's start with your personal situation.

You have, earlier this month, been convicted on this charge of cyber libel, as they're calling it,

has it changed things for you?

Aside from the emotional roller coaster and the fact that we've crossed yet another divide,

I think I'm pretty much on the same road I've been on for the last four years,

which is really standing up for my rights, both as a Filipino and as a

journalist. You're on bail, and I think your legal team have said there will be an appeal. Do you,

in any sense, feel frightened right now? You know, Stephen, I've gone through this when you've been under attack

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