Maria Ressa is on the digital run shooting frantic defensive tweets at people she calls “trolls”. Most of these are merely asking her to clarify the statements she made in last week’s conference on “media freedom” held in London.
A troll patrol is assigned to any @mariaressa tweets or anyone defending her. https://t.co/nGoOQ7ZUYQ
— Noemi L. Dado (@momblogger) July 14, 2019
Her response to critics, however, run counter to the spirit of open inquiry she and her lot of “journalists” supposedly espouse in the conference. Instead of properly responding to pertinent questions, she merely dismisses her detractors and labels them as “trolls” or “Duterte proxies”.
Ressa is subtracting value from the very advocacy she champions. She has styled herself as the complete opposite of the open system that invites challenge and encourages free inquiry that evolved on the Internet over the last several decades. She is a T-Rex among the lumbering dinosaurs that are members of the ever-shrinking clique of old-school media practitioners.
Media firms that are committed to evolving into lean and resilient organisations that can compete in the 21st Century media landscape are well-advised to distance themselves from Maria Ressa. She is not the role model they seek. Rather, she represents everything a truly modern media organisation isn’t.
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