In news- Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression“.
About the awardees-
- In 2012, Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, a digital media company for investigative journalism in Philippines.
- Ressa has focussed on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial “war on drug” campaign that has claimed thousands of lives.
- Ressa and her digital media company have also documented the spread of fake news, harassing opponents and manipulation of public discourse using social media.
- She has authored ‘Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center’, and ‘From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism’.
- Russian journalist Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov co-founded the newspaper Novaja Gazeta, along with around 50 colleagues in 1993 and has served as the newspaper’s editor-in-chief since 1995.
- He has for decades defended freedom of speech in Russia by publishing critical articles questioning the abuse of power, corruption, electoral fraud and “troll factories”.
- Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based non-profit, had felicitated Muratov as one of its International Press Freedom awardees in 2007.
Source: The Hindu
