Off the News: A Nobelist speaks for the truth

Truth, communicated with passion, can be a countervailing, democratic force to authoritarianism advanced by falsehoods. That is the precept for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner and journalist Maria Ressa, Tuesday’s keynote speaker at the East-West Center International Media Conference.

Ressa attributes growing authoritarian power worldwide to the attention-fracturing, falsehood-favoring effects of social media, and argued for global cooperation among journalists to counteract this splintering force.

The previous day, Ressa’s news organization, Rappler.com, was ordered shut by the Philippines government. “The Battle for Facts,” her keynote subject, continues.