Amid a rise of authoritarians and crackdowns on press freedom worldwide, the future of news and

democracy are inextricably linked.

Nobel Prize winning journalist Maria Resa, author of the book How to Stand Up to a Dictator,

and CEO of the digital news site Rappler

has spent nearly 40 years on the front lines of the battle for press freedom

in her home country of the Philippines and around the world.

She joins us now here for a deeper discussion.

Maria, welcome back, great to see you.

Thanks for having me.

So you are in town because you're being honored by the group Vital Voices for your

commitment to press freedom in the Philippines and around the world on the press freedom

front. I want to ask you about what reporters with borders recently shared

from their annual World Press Freedom Index.

They found that political pressure on media has increased at an alarming rate.

Tell us about why we're seeing this right now.

I mean, it's hand-in-hand with the

with the deterioration, the degradation of democracy right and you compare

RSF with Freedom House which is a decline of seven in the last 17 to 18 years, and then you put that together

with the Committee to Protect Journalists Numbers.

The attacks on journalists have increased as the quality of democracy has gone down globally. We have to sacrifice more to keep

doing our jobs. When you look at the stakes we talk a lot about the US

election this year but this is really a key election year around the world, right?

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