23 Oct 2025 Trust Conference 2025 – Upholding democratic freedoms in an autocratic age
Amid escalating global clampdowns on civic space and ruthless legal attacks on journalists and the media, Trust Conference 2025 asked a pressing question: Is it too late to save democracy, which stands on free and independent media that hold the powerful to account and enable...
Maria Ressa. Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock[/caption]
On June 15, 2020, a court in the capital Manila, convicted former CNN journalist Maria Ressa and former Rappler writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. of cyber libel for publishing an article that implicated a prominent businessman who was allegedly involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling.