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

by Maria Ressa

What you saw was what we all saw. Everyone read the same articles, watched the same news reports. We agreed on the facts. Though the visual medium was more emotional than print, there were limits to what you could ethically do, unlike the design and algorithms of social media today. The goal was not to win an argument or win a popularity contest; it was to create the more informed citizenry necessary for a democracy to work. Journalists were part of a shared culture of democracy: to listen, debate, and compromise. Aside from legal accountability, there was a sense of moral responsibility—to help create a better future. The understanding of how power works also felt more concrete. We knew that all governments would attempt to co-opt truth tellers and control narratives. 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. In most news groups, there was an internal battle between those in charge of the business, which needed to be on the right side of power, and the independent editorial hierarchy, which needed to be responsible to the people. That was another check and balance.