Why Philippines journalist Maria Ressa still reads the news

When it comes to the media, Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa has dealt with it all: attacks on the freedom of the press in the Philippines, audiences turning to social media, and misinformation. We spoke with her in Manila on January 17th, ahead of an acquittal in some of the legal cases against her. But these problems aren’t only in the Philippines. For our 500th episode, we’re looking at how we get our news and why. Spoiler alert: the state of the media isn’t great. So at a time when many say journalism is more important than ever, what can be done to turn around that distrust and disinterest?

In this episode: 

• Maria Ressa (@mariaressa), founder of Rappler and Nobel Peace Prize winner

• Nic Newman (@nicnewman), founding member of the BBC’s internet services and Senior Research Associate at Reuters Institute

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Amy Walters with Chloe K. Li and our host, Halla Mohieddeen. Miranda Lin fact-checked this episode.

Our production team includes Chloe K. Li, Miranda Lin, Ashish Malhotra, Negin Owliaei, and Amy Walters. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.

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