Irish Examiner view: This year's Nobel Peace Prize a recognition for truth

It is timely and encouraging that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to  journalists.

Colleagues congratulate 'Novaya Gazeta' editor Dmitry Muratov at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, in Moscow, Russia, yesterday. Picture: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP.

Reporting is a dangerous job. While it has always carried a risk, all the statistics are heading in the wrong direction.

Eighteen journalists have been killed so far in 2021, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, bringing the total to 1,416 since 1992.

In the US, more than 100 members of the press were attacked or arrested in the first quarter of the year, following yearly increases between 2017 and 2019. Last year’s figures spiked disproportionately due to the turmoil around the Black Lives Matter protests.

In Europe, more than 900 media workers were attacked in 23 member states, with the recent horrific example of veteran crime reporter Peter R de Vries shot to death in central Amsterdam.

It is timely and encouraging that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to two journalists operating in some of the world’s most dangerous jurisdictions for freedom of expression.

Maria Resser is co-founder of Rappler, an online news service in the Philippines. It has consistently shone light upon the activities of president Rodrigo Duterte and the extremes of his so-called “war on drugs”.

The award is shared with Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper part-owned by Mikhail Gorbachev, who used money from his own Nobel Peace Prize as seed capital, and Alexander Lebedev, publisher of two English newspapers.

On Mr Muratov’s watch, the paper has specialised in revealing corruption and investigating Russian actions in Chechnya and the Caucasus. Six of his journalists have been killed, prompting him once to say that he may have to arm his newsroom.

Ms Resser, who is on bail awaiting her appeal against a criminal conviction for cyber libel, commented that “a world without facts means a world without truth and without trust”. 

Powerful words, not to be taken lightly.