Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa has been named the Los Angeles Press Club’s 2026 Daniel Pearl Awardee for Courage and Integrity in Journalism, adding another global honor to a career defined by fearless reporting and a relentless defense of press freedom. The award, to be presented by Daniel Pearl’s father, Judea Pearl, at the LAPC SoCal Awards Gala on June 28 at the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles, recognizes journalists who embody “courage and integrity in journalism” in the spirit of the slain Wall Street Journal correspondent.
In announcing the award, Judea Pearl said Ressa, like his son, has come to symbolize press freedom, the protection of journalists and the importance of truthful reporting in the fight against corruption, disinformation and regimes that threaten peace and human rights. The Daniel Pearl Award has previously gone to high-profile journalists and outlets including Clarissa Ward, Evan Gershkovich, Nima Elbagir, Jason Rezaian, Charlie Hebdo, Richard Engel, Anna Politkovskaya, Raif Badawi and Bob Woodruff.
Ressa co-founded Rappler, the Philippines’ leading digital-only news site, and has faced years of political harassment and legal persecution, including multiple arrests and repeated court cases under the Duterte administration. Rappler’s battle to defend truth and democracy is chronicled in the documentary “A Thousand Cuts,” which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. In 2021, Ressa became one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, described by the Nobel Committee as a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.
Her ties to The Outstanding Filipino Awards (TOFA) stretch back a decade. Ressa served as emcee of the 2014 TOFA gala at Carnegie Hall in New York, bringing her sharp, global perspective on press freedom and democracy to a celebration of Filipino excellence. She was later named one of the TOFA100 Most Influential Filipino Americans during TOFA’s 10th anniversary in 2020, when the awards went fully virtual at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and honored 100 leaders whose work has shaped Filipino and Filipino American life.
Beyond Rappler, Ressa 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. She is the author of “Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia,” “From Bin Laden to Facebook” and “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” which has been translated into more than 20 languages. In recent years, she has focused global attention on the breakdown of the information ecosystem and on how networks of citizens, journalists and institutions can work together to defend democratic values.
For TOFA News readers, Ressa’s Daniel Pearl Award is not just another line on an already distinguished résumé. It is a powerful reminder that a Filipina journalist once on the Carnegie Hall TOFA stage now stands at the center of a worldwide fight for truth, accountability and the future of free journalism.
