Maria Ressa

Maria Ressa is co-founder, CEO, and executive editor of Rappler.com, an online news organization in the Philippines. A journalist in Asia for over 30 years, she previously managed the Phillippine multi-platform news operation ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs. Ressa was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila then Jakarta, CNN’s lead investigative reporter focusing on terrorism in Southeast Asia, and co-founded the production company Probe. She authored Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook. Accolades for Ressa’s work fighting disinformation and attempts to silence the free press include being named TIME’s 2018 Person of the Year and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers’ Golden Pen of Freedom Award.