How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future

by Maria Ressa

Education determines the quality of governance. An investment in education takes a generation to bear fruit. Likewise, countries feel the impact of this disregard for education a generation later. That determines their productivity, the quality of their workforce, their investments, and ultimately their gross domestic product (GDP). A nation’s budget line item for education is an investment in its people. The ability to discern and question, which is crucial to both journalism and democracy, is also determined by education. Journalists and news organizations are a reflection of the people’s power to hold its leaders accountable. That means that ultimately the quality of a democracy can also be seen in the quality of its journalists.

In most democracies, journalists were the Fourth Estate, deriving power from the people’s will, their desire for knowledge to form opinions about their lives, their country, their leaders. In exchange for this access to the people’s hearts and minds, the state gave access to journalists. At its best, the relationship is a checks-and-balances system. At its worst, the access becomes contingent on whether a journalist told the stories the state wanted.