Nobel peace prize awarded to journalists Maria Ressa & Dmitry Muratov

(News 1st); The Nobel peace prize 2021 has been awarded to journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for " efforts to safeguard freedom of expression". Rappler, the site news website founded by Ressa in 2012 “has focused critical attention on the [President Rodrigo] Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign,” the committee said, adding that Ressa and Rappler “have also documented how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse”. Muratov was one of the founders of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in 1993. The committee said the newspaper was “the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power”. It added: “The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media.” Dmitry Muratov is a Russian journalist and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as “the only truly critical newspaper with national influence in Russia today”, which he edited between 1995 and 2017.