Maria Ressa Books
Maria Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist, author, and CEO of Rappler, an independent news site in the Philippines. She has received numerous international awards for her courage in defending press freedom, including the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Known for: How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Books by Maria Ressa
How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
How do democracies collapse when elections still happen, news still circulates, and people still believe they are free? In How to Stand Up to a Dictator, journalist Maria Ressa answers that question from the front lines. Part memoir, part political warning, and part civic manifesto, the book traces her journey from a transnational childhood to a career in journalism, culminating in her leadership at Rappler, the Philippine news organization that exposed corruption, violence, and digital manipulation under Rodrigo Duterte’s government. Ressa shows that modern authoritarianism does not always arrive in military uniform. It often comes through algorithms, lies repeated at scale, and fear normalized one post at a time. What makes this book so urgent is Ressa’s authority: she is not a distant observer but a reporter who was harassed, arrested, prosecuted, and publicly attacked for telling the truth. Her experience in the Philippines becomes a warning for the world. This is a deeply personal account of courage under pressure, but also a practical argument that defending facts, accountability, and human dignity is now everyone’s responsibility.
Read SummaryKey Insights from Maria Ressa
A Life Shaped by Crossing Worlds
Identity often becomes clearest when you have to live between cultures. Maria Ressa’s early life, split between the Philippines and the United States, trained her to notice contradiction, power, and belonging in ways that later shaped her work as a journalist. Growing up across different social and ...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Rappler and Journalism With Civic Purpose
News is never just about information; it is also about the kind of society information makes possible. When Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler in 2012 with three other women, the goal was not merely to launch another digital newsroom. It was to build a form of journalism suited to the social media age, ...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Disinformation Changes How Power Operates
A lie does not need to be believable to be effective; it only needs to be repeated, amplified, and emotionally useful. One of the book’s most important contributions is its explanation of how disinformation reshapes political life. Ressa shows that falsehood today is not just random noise or fringe ...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Authoritarianism Thrives on Fear and Confusion
Dictatorship in the twenty-first century may look less like censorship alone and more like a flood of noise. Ressa argues that modern authoritarianism does not always silence every critic directly. Instead, it overwhelms the public sphere, discredits independent voices, and makes truth feel uncertai...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
The Internet Can Be Weaponized
Technology is not neutral when its incentives consistently reward the worst parts of human behavior. Ressa’s memoir forcefully argues that the internet, especially social media platforms, has been weaponized against democratic society. The problem is not simply that bad actors use digital tools. It ...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Truth Telling Has a Personal Price
Courage is often described as a noble ideal, but Ressa insists on its more difficult reality: courage is costly, repetitive, and frequently lonely. One of the book’s emotional centers is the personal toll of choosing not to yield. As Ressa and her colleagues at Rappler faced arrests, court cases, de...
From How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
About Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist, author, and CEO of Rappler, an independent news site in the Philippines. She has received numerous international awards for her courage in defending press freedom, including the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Ressa previously worked as CNN’s bureau chief in Ma...
Read more
Maria Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist, author, and CEO of Rappler, an independent news site in the Philippines. She has received numerous international awards for her courage in defending press freedom, including the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Ressa previously worked as CNN’s bureau chief in Ma...
Maria Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist, author, and CEO of Rappler, an independent news site in the Philippines. She has received numerous international awards for her courage in defending press freedom, including the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Ressa previously worked as CNN’s bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta and is recognized globally for her advocacy for truth and democracy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Maria Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist, author, and CEO of Rappler, an independent news site in the Philippines. She has received numerous international awards for her courage in defending press freedom, including the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Read Maria Ressa's books in 15 minutes
Get AI-powered summaries with key insights from 1 book by Maria Ressa.