Welcome back to the podcast, bribe, swindle, or steel.

I'm Alexandra Rogge and I am honored and really just delighted to introduce our guest today.

When someone has won the Nobel Peace Prize, any introduction really can just be one sentence long, but I'd nevertheless

like to highlight a few details. Maria Ressa was born in the Philippines, moved as a child to the

United States, and then returned to the Philippines on a Fulbright after graduating from Princeton.

She was an investigative journalist in a bureau chief for CNN before founding Rappler,

the Philippines leading digital media company where she serves as CEO. And I love this detail

as evidence of a full and unconventional life. A play written by Maria was performed at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Maria has been arrested and charged repeatedly, including in one case retroactively.

That is, the law was passed after the alleged conduct, but Maria was nevertheless charged with

violating a law before the law existed, horrifying for anyone who cares about due process.

Maria, thank you for joining me.

No, thanks for having me, Alexandra. Let's start with your book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator,

The Fight for Our Future. Fascinating book, really highly recommend to all of our listeners.

But why did you feel the need to write that book? And I guess more pressingly, why now?

I had lived through so many things in the last few years. The question I always had a hard time answering is, how do you find courage? I didn't even really know what to call what we were

doing was courageous because it was what we had

always done, right? As a journalist, you stand up and you ask tough questions and you write the

stories and when power tries to shut you down, you stand up against it. I realized that part of the

reason it was a difficult thing to say is to do in one or two sentences because it goes all the way back to your

fundamental values. And it goes back to core beliefs that I had since I was a child. So that's

part of it. And this is how to stand up to a dictator goes. It goes all the way back to when I was

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