IWPR's Frontline Update
12 October 2021
IWPR's Frontline Updates – unique insights from our network of local reporters and updates from our programmes.
The entire media community celebrates the Nobel Peace Prize Award to Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa, both worthy winners and representative of the best that journalism can be.
Muratov and Ressa have both demonstrated exemplary courage and dedication. Ressa’s long-standing work running the Rappler website and driving investigative reporting to confront impunity, is an effective symbol of commitment and excellence in Asia. Heading up the newspaper Novaja Gazeta, Muratov has not only survived but thrived in a highly restrictive media environment in Russia in which independent and dissident voices can barely operate.
Local voices show incredible endurance and determination to report from inside dictatorships, whether in the Middle East, Latin America or Asia. The media movement in Syria brought the horrors of that war to the world’s attention despite the near-total absence of international reporters. Citizen journalists in Myanmar have been doing the same. Reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan built an independent media in countries where it never existed (and in the latter, where it may soon be crushed). Amid extremist violence in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai - starting out as an IWPR trainee prodigy - learned the tools of journalism to empower her own voice for girls education, before herself winning a Nobel.
The Nobel Committee’s award – the first ever for journalism – recognises and celebrates not only the work of the new laureates but the core importance of this reporting, and especially local reporting, to free societies everywhere.
Anthony Borden
IWPR FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
IWPR Congratulates Nobel Prizewinner Maria Ressa
In the Philippines, local and independent media continues to be under siege.
"We celebrate this win for all journalists and truth tellers. We also brace for more work in defence of freedom and independent voices."
Rorie Fajardo-Jarilla
ASIA PROGRAMME COORDINATOR & PHILIPPINES COUNTRY DIRECTOR
China-Taiwan Tensions Mount
Could Beijing's growing belligerence be a preparation for war?
Turkey: Women Demand Equal Treatment in Mosques
Activists fight traditions that exclude female worshippers from communal prayers.
Belarus: Schools Teach Lessons in Patriotism
Educational reforms signal a fresh battlefront in regime crackdown.
Kenya: the Quiz Show Combatting Covid-19
Innovative TV format helps dispel fake news and fear-mongering around the virus.
You may have missed...
Afghanistan After the Collapse: What Next?
Highlights of an IWPR discussion with Christina Lamb - IWPR International Board, Chief Foreign Correspondent, Sunday Times; Dr. Barnett Rubin - Senior Fellow, Center on International Cooperation, NYU and Noorrahman Rahmani - former IWPR Afghanistan Country Director, Media & Civil Society Expert.