--- title: Maria Ressa Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List description: Maria Ressa is one of the most influential people of 2019. Madeleine Albright writes about the Rappler editor's fight for press freedom. canonical: https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-04-16T22:43:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:30:39.760Z og:title: Maria Ressa Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List og:description: Maria Ressa is one of the most influential people of 2019. Madeleine Albright writes about the Rappler editor's fight for press freedom. og:url: https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Maria Ressa Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Maria Ressa Is on the 2019 TIME 100 List twitter:description: Maria Ressa is one of the most influential people of 2019. Madeleine Albright writes about the Rappler editor's fight for press freedom. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- Apr 16, 2019 # Maria Ressa by Madeleine Albright  Moises Saman—Magnum Photos for TIME Soon after learning that she was one of a group of journalists being honored by TIME as Person of the Year in 2018, Filipino reporter Maria Ressa had a startling realization—she was the only one of the honorees who was not either dead, a recent survivor of a deadly attack or imprisoned. She has since been arrested and released on bail multiple times. Around the world, a new generation of authoritarian leaders is leading a concerted and intentional assault on truth, with serious consequences for journalists such as Maria who are committed to exposing corruption, documenting abuse and combatting misinformation. Maria’s Manila-based news site, Rappler, has already been indicted by President Duterte’s government on questionable tax-evasion charges, and Maria was arrested and briefly imprisoned earlier this year for allegedly violating a dubious “cyber-libel” law. But Maria remains undaunted. When I presented her with the National Democratic Institute’s highest honor in 2017, she spoke of the hard work and courage of her colleagues at Rappler: “We are journalists, and we will not be intimidated. We will shine the light. We will hold the line.” That is precisely what she has done. _Albright is a former U.S. Secretary of State_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/"},"headline":"Maria Ressa","datePublished":"2019-04-16T22:43:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:30:39.760Z","description":"Maria Ressa is one of the most influential people of 2019. Madeleine Albright writes about the Rappler editor's fight for press freedom.","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/","keywords":["T100 2019 Icons","2019 TIME 100"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2019/5567672/maria-ressa/","name":"Maria Ressa"}}]}] ```