Maria Ressa

Focus Areas

Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, a digital news site leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler’s CEO, Maria has endured political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government. Rappler’s battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 documentary, “A Thousand Cuts.”  

In October 2021, she was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”  

In 2022, Ressa was appointed to the United Nations Panel of the Internet Governance Forum. She is an inaugural Carnegie Distinguished Fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, and this fall, she will join Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs as a professor of professional practice.  

Maria focuses critical attention on the breakdown of our global information ecosystem and how communities of action can hold the line to protect democracy.