Authoritarianism, harassment, persecution and criminalization experienced by journalists in several Latin American countries today are circumstances that are very familiar to Maria Ressa, journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She experienced firsthand the attacks of a government – that of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte – who was accused of targeting press freedom and of taking advantage of social media and disinformation to try to impose his own narrative.
Ressa, who founded news portal Rappler in 2011, specialized in investigative journalism and was a pioneer in her country in fact-checking and the use of social media, was accused of “cyber libel” and tax evasion. At the time, the journalist said the charges were a response to Rappler's critical reporting of Duterte and his anti-drug policies.
Ressa was arrested twice between 2018 and 2019, and in 2020 was found guilty of the “cyber libel” charges, following a trial that was called “a sham” by press freedom and human rights advocacy organizations. The journalist has since filed appeals to the Philippine Supreme Court and is awaiting sentencing.
While that sentence is pending, the journalist must pay the court a cash bond every time she travels abroad, as she did to participate in the 2024 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, in April 2024, where she spoke to LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
“Look at me, fortunately I can be here with you and not in prison!” she said during her keynote panel at the event.
But Ressa is a little less optimistic when talking about what journalism is going through in other countries of the Global South, especially Latin America. She believes that the hostile environment for the press in some countries of the region is the same as what happened in the Philippines.
For this reason, she advises her Latin American colleagues to join forces, collaborate and seek help to face the attacks of authoritarian governments, disinformation campaigns and the loss of trust in news.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
1. Which do you think are the main challenges that journalism in the Global South will face this year, when elections are being held in several countries?
Maria Ressa (MR). The further breakdown of trust, because there's no shared reality and no shared facts. So it's erosion of facts that leads to the breakdown of trust. And the challenge for journalists is that we are being attacked. Propagandists are calling journalists propagandists, but we have a set of standards and ethics that keep from doing that.
So gaslighting is yet another problem that we're dealing with. I think we need to collaborate a lot more than we're doing now. And I know that Latin American journalists are starting to do this.
2. You have said that you are following the cases of El Salvador, Mexico, and other Latin American countries where journalists are being harassed. How similar does the situation in those countries look compared with what you lived in the Philippines, a few years ago, during Duterte’s administration?
MR. It’s absolutely the same, which is to attack. It's a gaslighting effect. But also the use of information operations. The design of the [digital] platforms can enable information operations to break down trust in the news organizations, which means people don't know what's real and what's not.
When people do not trust anything, they don't vote. They don't. That's what a dictator wants.
3. Talking about the platforms, the Big Techs. Should we collaborate with them or should we fight them, as journalists?
MR. I think we have to do both with Big Tech. We have to understand what they're doing. They're ahead, and they've used us. When we put the “share” button on our websites, we gave our relationships to Big Tech.
And it's getting worse today. Now, they're getting our content as a whole. So look, we need to work with them, and at the same time we need to call them out. Rappler is a partner of every single tech company and yet, at the same time, we're also holding them accountable.
4. In terms of judicial harassment, what are some tips you can share to the many journalists that are facing it in Latin America right now?
MR. You are not alone. There's a greater understanding today of how lawyers must be part of the protection system of journalism. So, ask for help. Don't do it alone.
5. Many of the journalists that are in danger in Latin America don’t have the backing of big news organizations. Who can they go to for legal or mental health support, in the face of attacks and threats for doing their job?
MR. Macro-micro. The first is: news heads, hear: collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. We are on the side of facts, and facts are under attack. Why is it that the creative industry, the [Writers Guild of America] went on a strike together against LLM [AI Large Language Models]? That's at macro level. We’re still living in the old world to some degree, looking at it as different news outlets alone, or different countries alone. This is a global problem and it is both a news organizational problem, as well as an individual journalist.
We were small in the Philippines, I'd say oneth the size of the largest news group that I had managed. And what we did was, first, it was early 2016, so we literally had to ask the Dart Center to come train us. They weren't psychologists but people who can help our team –we were about a hundred people– process the attacks.
Never do this alone, if you don't have an association, create one, because you're not alone, and you will need support. And then you have other international organizations who can help with this. Holding power to account is dangerous, especially in countries like ours. Yours a little worse than mine right now. So you're not alone, don't act like you're alone, look for the best practices, we've certainly gone through this.
Women are attacked disproportionately more than men, and it is meant to hammer you down, to stop your voice. You keep going.
