From the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, this is a memoir of a career spent holding power to account. How to Stand Up to a Dictator is an urgent cry for Western readers to recognize and understand the dangers to our freedoms before it is too late.
What flows through this, Ressa’s memoir, is a strong ethical sense that journalism has to be grounded in honesty and truth-telling, in evidence and incontrovertible facts ... Her chapter on the mission of journalism, in which she explodes the myth of 'objective' reporting, should be read by everyone in the trade ... Her urgent message now is that news organisations are being replaced by technology companies that have no interest in protecting facts, truth or trust ... Ressa’s book is a rallying cry to protect liberal progress, which is in danger of destruction.
[Maria Ressa] is a moral giant ... Her book is part autobiography and part manifesto ... Ressa’s inspiring book has an impassioned, frustrated and, at times, angry tone. She saw the future and knew how it didn’t work for democracy.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa’s powerful new autobiography, How to Stand Up to a Dictator, weaves together three compelling narratives ... [Ressa] does not explicitly, however, give us a silver bullet for defeating violent strongmen ... In the end, what she proffers is a very simple idea — moral inviolability. Integrity, conscience, soul. It is an old-fashioned notion, largely discredited in our fast-paced, materialistic culture. But in the end, as this inspirational book demonstrates, it is truly the only thing that can save us ... At a time when the world faces a stark choice between authoritarian leaders and those with the courage to stand up to them, Maria Ressa is an indispensable guide in showing us the path from our troubled present to a better future.
