Journalists under threat win 2021 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, for fighting for media freedom in the Philippines and Russia respectively. This is the first time the Peace Prize has been given to reporters since 1935.

Ressa, Chief Executive and co-founder of Rappler, and Muratov, the Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta, were cited for their bravery and relentless work for an independent media which has been under siege around the world.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee noted that in saying: “Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda.”

She said the committee felt that two journalists, picked from among a number who have otherwise been jailed, detained, harassed, or terrorized by authoritarian governments, stood out.

Resaa and Muratov were “representatives of all journalists who stand up for this ideal in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions,” she added.

The press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – which was a candidate for the prize itself – called the award “a call for mobilization to defend journalism” that had sparked a sense of both “joy and urgency.”

The group noted that 24 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the year and 350 others imprisoned, with attackers having near impunity as governments from Belarus to Hungary to Russia and Mexico have made targets of media workers.

Greek journalist Giorgos Karaivaz was gunned down in April and no arrests have been made, while noted Dutch journalist Peter R. deVries was shot dead in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam only a few months later.

Ressa, 58, a former CNN bureau chief in the Philippines, and Rappler, the news site she founded in 2012, have faced repeated charges and investigations after publishing stories critical of President Rodrigo Duterte and his war against drugs.

Muratov was one of the founders in 1993 of Novaya Gazeta, which the Nobel committee called “the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power.”

“The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media,” the committee added.

Ressa, the first from The Philippines to win the Peace Prize and the first woman this year with a Nobel, was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to prison time in a decision that media freedom groups assailed.

“This relentless campaign of harassment and intimidation against me and my fellow journalists in the Philippines is a stark example of a global trend that journalists and freedom of the press facing increasingly adverse conditions,” she told The Associated Press.

“I didn’t think that what we are going through would get that attention. But the fact that it did also shows you how important the battles we face are, right?" she said. "This is going to be what our elections are going to be like next year. It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism,” she added.

The award is accompanied by a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (more than $1.14 million) that comes from a bequest from Alfred Nobel, who made his fortune in the explosives business and died in 1895.

Muratov said he would use his win to help independent journalists being pressured by those in authority, including those whose organizations were declared “foreign agents.”

That was a reference to President Vladimir Putin's government using that designation as a tool to stifle an independent media through regulatory means. Those cited as foreign agents in Russia come under intense government scrutiny and their actions are limited.

Muratov said of his award that, “We will use it to shore up Russian journalism that has faced repressions,” as reported by a Russian messaging app channel. “We will try to help the people who have been designated as agents, have faced persecution and have been forced out of the country.”

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 17 media workers were killed in the Philippines in the last decade and 23 in Russia.