Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa is the LAPC 2026 Daniel Pearl Awardee for Courage and Integrity in Journalism.
“We are extremely pleased to see the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism awarded to Maria Ressa, who, like Danny before her, has come to symbolize press freedom, the protection of journalists, and the importance of truthful reportin in the fight against corruption, disinformation, and theocratic regimes that threaten peace and human rights,” said Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl.
Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler’s CEO, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail eleven times to stay free. Rappler’s battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, “A Thousand Cuts.”
In 2021, she was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
She is a Professor of Practice at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she leads the Technology & Democracy Initiative at the Institute of Global Politics.
Maria authored “Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia” and “From Bin Laden to Facebook.” Her most recent book, “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” was released in November 2022 and has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Maria focuses critical attention on the breakdown of our global information ecosystem and how interconnected communities of action can hold the line to protect democratic values.
Since 2002, the Los Angeles Press Club, in conjunction with Judea and Ruth Pearl, the parents of slain Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, has bestowed the Daniel Pearl Award on brave journalists from around the globe. In recent years, the Daniel Pearl Foundation has been part of the presentation. The 2026 award will be presented by Judea Pearl at an Awards Gala Dinner at the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 28.
Past recipients include Clarissa Ward, Evan Gershkovich, Nima Elbagir, Jason Rezaian, Charlie Hebdo, Richard Engel, Anna Politkovskaya, Raif Badawi, and Bob Woodruff.
The SoCal Awards Gala is a fundraiser for this 501c3 charitable organization and makes it possible for us to run the club, provide much-needed scholarships, grants, and fellowships to journalists from underserved communities, as well as fund our educational programming for the rest of the year.
To buy tickets, advertise or sponsor this event with a tax-deductible donation, visit LAPressClub.org or contact Diana@lapressclub.org.
LAPC is one of the oldest and most respected journalist organizations in the nation, with a storied history of honoring the most celebrated reporters of the past century. In recent years, the Los Angeles Press Club has continued to uphold its tradition of acknowledging excellence in spite of the fact that Journalism itself has been under attack and struggles in the face of ever-declining budgets.
