Another argument for the need to do more…

by Fiona Joy Green and Jaqueline McLeod Rogers

Maria Ressa, Filipino journalist and Nobel Prize laurete, argues we can all intervene in the moment and demand participation and truth. She describes the current culture as driven by social media lies and without recourse to truth or ethical corrections. Oddly, there is an element of optimism in the position she puts forward. She is able to imagine human culture going forward so that we will live onto a time when it’s possible to look back and say, “the 2020s was a time when we could have done more to manage technology and circulating opinions and truths.” While she doesn’t guarantee that we will make a successful intervention, her vision triggers now is the time to act and imagines a future that could be better or that could be the time of collective regret. We must demand accountability from technology, demand better from government, demand better from ourselves.

Check out Ressa’s interview, “Last two minutes of Democracy,” with Nahlah Ayed on CBC radio Ideas in the Afternoon.

Journalist and advocate Maria Ressa says she still has hope for justice and truth in journalism but warns ‘we have to actually speak when it matters.’ Ressa delivered the 2022 McGill Beatty Lecture in October. (Owen Egan and Joni Dufour) https://i.cbc.ca/1.6645920.1668014044!/fileImage/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/maria-ressa-beatty-lecture.JPG