The CEO and Executive Editor of Rappler.com, Maria Ressa is one of the founders of one of the leading online news organizations in the Philippines.

As a news platform, Rappler has persistently shed light on the President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte’s harsh policies. It reported that under Duterte nearly 8,000 Filipinos have been victims of extrajudicial killings at the hands of security forces. In response to the reports, Duterte and his government have targeted Rappler, making it a major focus of its attack on press freedom. Ressa is now fighting the government’s move to revoke Rappler’s license and thus silence it on grounds that the site is owned by foreigners. The case has reached the country’s Supreme Court.

Ressa has been honored around the world for her courageous and bold work in fighting disinformation, “fake news” and attempts to silence the free press. She received the National Democratic Institute’s 2017 Democracy Award. In 2018, she was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” and won the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA), the Knight International Journalism Award of the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Journalist of Courage and Impact Award of East-West Center and the IX International Press Freedom Award of University of Málaga and UNESCO, among others.

She has been a journalist in Asia for more than thirty years. In 1987, Maria co-founded the independent production company, Probe. In 2005, she managed ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs, the largest multi-platform news operation in the Philippines. Her work aimed to redefine journalism by combining traditional broadcast, new media and mobile phone technology for social change.

She was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila then Jakarta, and became CNN’s lead investigative reporter focusing on terrorism in Southeast Asia. Ressa has taught courses in politics and the press in Southeast Asia for her alma mater, Princeton University, and in broadcast journalism for the University of the Philippines. She is the author of two books: Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast and From Bin Laden to Facebook.