Rappler's Maria Ressa Is Nominated For a Nobel Peace Prize
Maria Ressa, founder and CEO of Rappler, has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre, who also nominated Ressa alongside Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“In today's world, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists are the two foremost organizations for promoting media freedom and protecting journalists. A Nobel Peace Prize for these organizations will be a recognition of the work they do, and it will recognize the thousands of journalists who report on conflicts,” said Støre on the Norwegian news site Journalisten.no.
“Filipino Maria Ressa heads Rappler, a website for investigative and investigative journalism. Prior to founding Rappler in 2012, she worked for CNN in Asia, where she specifically reports on terrorist networks. In recent years, Ressa has been harassed, persecuted, and arrested numerous times - due to her coverage of corruption, especially about business people linked to President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa has for years lived with death threats and harassment on social media. She is thus both a symbol and a representative of thousands of journalists around the world.”
The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious and respected awards in the world. Each year, a Nobel Prize is awarded to one person or group from the following fields: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. Established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the Nobel Prize aims to award those who have “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” Winners receive a gold medal, a diploma, a cash prize of around $1.1 million, as well as the privilege of being called a “Nobel laureate.”
Unlike the Oscars or other awarding bodies, the Nobel Committees do not disclose the list of nominees. Only the winner will be announced on the date of the awards event.
For the Nobel Peace Prize, the nomination process starts with the Norwegian Nobel Committee, consisting of five people appointed by the Norwegian parliament, sending out inquiries and nomination forms to established academics, leaders, and laureates, who then offer Nobel Peace Prize nominations to the committee. From this list of initial nominations, the committee then narrows down the list to 300 potential laureates, whose names will be confidential for 50 years.
As such, nominations are only brought to light by the academics, leaders, and former laureates who have revealed their nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Among this year’s nominees include pro-democracy Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was nominated by Lithuanian president Gitanas Nauseda; the Black Lives Matter movement, which was nominated by Norwegian member of parliament Petter Eide; and the Hong Kong Free Press, which was nominated by three Norwegian parliamentarians.
Famous Nobel Peace Prize laureates include Barack Obama, Malala Yousafzai, and Nelson Mandela.
The 2021 Nobel Prize Award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
