Two journalists defying brutal dictators won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their battles for press freedom and free expression.
Maria Ressa (bio here), a critic of Philippines president Rodrigo Dutarte, has been harassed, prosecuted, and threatened with prison. Dmitri Muratov (bio here), a Putin critic, runs a pro-democracy newspaper in Russia that has lost six of its journalists to murders.
The Nobel Prize committee “said it wanted to highlight the plight of journalists across the globe who are operating in what watchdogs say is an increasingly repressive environment,” NBC News reported (see story here), adding, “This prize … will help shed a light on the importance of the work of journalists, and how dangerous it is.”
The last time a journalist was awarded a Nobel Prize was in 1935, when a German won for exposing Hitler’s secret rearmament program.