Maria Ressa

Maria Angelita Ressa (born Maria Angelita Delfin Aycardo on October 2, 1963) is a Filipino and American journalist.

She is the co-founder and CEO of Rappler.

She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia for CNN.

She will become Professor of Professional Practice in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University on July 1, 2024, and will be a Distinguished Fellow at Columbia's new Institute of Global Politics beginning in the fall of 2023.

Ressa was born in Manila and raised in Toms River, New Jersey.

Ressa was born in Manila in October 1963.

Ressa's father Phil Sunico Aycardo, a Chinese-Filipino, died when she was one year old.

She grew up speaking only Tagalog and studied at St. Scholastica's College in Manila.

Her mother Hermelina then moved to the United States, leaving Ressa and her sister with their father's family, but would visit her two children frequently.

Subsequently, her mother married an Italian-American man named Peter Ames Ressa and returned to the Philippines.

She brought both of her children to New Jersey, United States when Ressa was ten years old.

Ressa was adopted by her stepfather and she took his last name.

Her parents then relocated to Toms River, New Jersey, where she went to Toms River High School North, a public school nearby.

Ressa had to learn the English language, and by high school stood out as a member of the Theater Guild and student council.

Her yearbook profile included her dreams to set out and conquer the world.

Ressa was an undergraduate student at Princeton University, where she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English and certificates in theater and dance in 1986.

She completed a 77-page-long senior thesis titled "Sagittarius" that was an allegorical play about Philippine politics.

She then was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study political theater at the University of the Philippines Diliman where she also taught several journalism courses as a faculty member in the university.

Ressa's first job was at government station PTV 4.

She then co-founded independent production company Probe in 1987, and simultaneously served as CNN's bureau chief in Manila until 1995.

She then ran CNN's Jakarta bureau from 1995 to 2005.

As CNN's lead investigative reporter in Asia, she specialized in investigating terrorist networks.

She became an author-in-residence at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) of Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

She is the author of three books concerning the rise of terrorism in Southeast Asia—Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda's Newest Center (2003) and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism (2013).

and How to Stand Up To a Dictator (2022).

Ressa has also taught courses in politics and the press in Southeast Asia for Princeton University, and broadcast journalism for the University of the Philippines Diliman.

From 2004, Ressa headed the news division of ABS-CBN, while also writing for CNN, and The Wall Street Journal.

In September 2010, she wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal criticising the then president Beningno Aquino III handling of the bus hostage crisis.

This piece was published two weeks before the president's official visit to the United States of America.

Speculations were rife that this, among other reasons, finally led to Ressa leaving the company in 2010, after deciding not to renew her contract.

Ressa is a fellow at the Initiative on the Digital Economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and

is a 2021 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School.

Ressa established the online news site Rappler in 2012 along with three other female founders and with a small team of 12 journalists and developers.

It initially started as a Facebook page named MovePH in August 2011, evolving into a complete website on January 1, 2012.

She was included in Time Person of the Year 2018 issue featuring a collection of journalists from around the world actively combating fake news.

On February 13, 2019, she was arrested by Philippine authorities for cyberlibel due to accusations that Rappler published a false news story concerning businessman Wilfredo Keng.

On June 15, 2020, a court in Manila found her guilty of cyberlibel under the controversial Anti-Cybercrime law, a move condemned by human rights groups and journalists as an attack on press freedom.

As she is a prominent critic of the then Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, her arrest and conviction was seen by many in the opposition and the international community as a politically motivated act by Duterte's government.

Ressa is one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.

She was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Dmitry Muratov for "their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."