Nobel Peace Prize Journalist Maria Ressa Holds the Line

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2022

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

As we near the end of 2022, we sit with trailblazing journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa. We begin by unpacking the fragmenting effects of social media (5:08), how the Internet is giving power to authoritarian regimes around the globe (7:49), and Ressa’s past five years uncovering those operations (8:20). Then, we walk through her early years: moving from the Philippines to suburban New Jersey at age ten (13:08), three lessons from childhood (15:52), and the books that impacted her at Princeton (21:10).

On the back-half, we discuss Ressa’s serendipitous entry to the newsroom (30:18), why she founded Rappler in 2012 (33:12), and her critical reportage on President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war (34:52), which led to her arrest by the Filipino government in 2019 (39:22). Now, she’s charted this fight in her new book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator (45:12). To close, we honor her continuous pursuit of the truth (48:03), her recognition as a 2021 Nobel Laureate (50:37), and the words of a lifelong friend (54:11).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm Sam Forgo, activist, and author Maria Resa.
0:47.0	Maria was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 in recognition of her efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which, as the Nobel
0:56.1	Committee noted, is a precondition to democracy and lasting peace, both of which are central
1:02.4	subjects of Maria's remarkable new book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator.
1:07.0	In it, she chronicles her nearly four decades as a leading journalist in the Philippines, where she's covered her country's shift
1:15.1	from an authoritarian state to a precarious democracy. She did this work for many years
1:20.7	at CNN before founding the website Rappler, which is the top news
1:26.0	publication fighting for press freedom in the Philippines. In fact because of the
1:31.4	work published on Rappler, Maria has endured constant political harassment
1:36.3	orchestrated by Rodrigo de Terte, who served as the President of the Philippines from 2016 until this past summer.
1:44.0	While his reign may be over,
1:46.0	Reza is still grappling with the fallout.
1:49.0	Since 2018, the Filipino government has brought 23 cases against Reza and Rappler, seven of which
1:56.6	she is currently defending on charges of cyber liable and tax evasion.
2:01.3	If convicted on all 23 cases she could be sentenced to nearly a
2:05.4	hundred years in prison. The charges are the latest authoritarian efforts by
2:10.2	the Filipino government to suppress the truth and punish anyone who seeks to expose it.
2:16.0	In a week where we've seen Elon Musk haphazardly ban reporters on Twitter, I think Maria's story offers some perspective.
2:24.2	It's also instructive.
2:26.1	Her book can either be read as an elegy for democracy or a clarion call to preserve it.
2:32.3	And as we near the end of 2022 in what has been a taxing, fatiguing year,
2:38.4	I could think of no one I wanted to sit with more than Maria. You'll understand why in a second. In our talk, we unpack the
	...

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