Philippine journalist Maria Ressa took aim at American social media companies for allowing the “toxic sludge” of disinformation to spread online and impede the work of reporters worldwide, as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Friday.
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Meanwhile, Ressa’s co-winner, Russia newspaper editor Dmitri Muratov, said he believed the world had fallen out of love with democracy and is beginning to turn to dictatorship… Since its launch two decades ago, Muratov’s newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, has repeatedly written about alleged corruption in the Russian government – and many link that to the killings of six of the paper’s reporters. “But this is their mission,” he said, speaking of journalists who risk their lives. “As governments continually improve the past, journalists try to improve the future.” Muratov said his Nobel was “for all true journalism.” “This award is to my colleagues from Novaya Gazeta, who have lost their lives …. This award is also to the colleagues who are alive, to the professional community who perform their professional duty,” Muratov said. He then called for a minute of silence to honor fallen journalists around the world. “Let us rise and honor my and Maria Ressa’s reporter colleagues, who have given their lives for this profession, with a minute of silence, and let us give our support to those who suffer persecution,” he said. “I want journalists to die old.”