Philippines’ Rappler fuses online journalism with counter-terrorism tactics, social network theory

Few men can score a date with the sexiest woman in the Philippines, which made me a very lucky bloke indeed. A few months ago, I was on my way to Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore to interview Maria Ressa, an accomplished journalist, counter-terrorism expert, and co-founder of Rappler, an exciting, young online news organization from the Philippines.

Of course, I didn’t know about her hottest woman alive label then. But that did not make me any less nervous: Maria’s accomplishments far outsize her petite stature. A Princeton University graduate and Fulbright Fellow, she worked at CNN for almost two decades, serving as the bureau chief in Manila and then Jakarta. She then became the news and current affairs chief at ABS-CBN, Philippines’ largest television network.

She possesses a deep understanding of terrorist networks, having authored two books on the subject. Her latest work, From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism, narrates the gripping story of how she led the crisis team that resolved the kidnapping of her news crew who were en route to interview the leader of Abu Sayyaf, a militant Islamist group from Southern Philippines.

Now, she’s on to her next adventure: Starting a new media company that is reimagining journalism.

Asia is not exactly the first place that comes to mind when you think about cutting edge journalism, especially when it comes to the convergence of technology, open data, and media.

For that, we typically look to the United States, where the New York Times unveiled Snow Fall, a groundbreaking multimedia journalism feature, where Forbes did the unprecedented by opening up its platform to outside contributors, and where media startups like Circa, Medium, and Storify are trying to reinvent how content is created, distributed, and published.

But if we look closely enough, media innovation is indeed happening right under our noses in Asia.

The seeds of Rappler

Maria’s decision to build a startup from scratch seemed uncharacteristic, especially from someone who has sunk deep roots into traditional news media. To understand why, we’ll have to look into the past.

Tired of doing breaking news at CNN, Maria sought a new challenge in the Philippines, that of professionalizing radio, online, and cable news in the country. But she found the task of implementing change at a large entity like ABS-CBN tiresome.

“It’s like trying to turn the Titanic. You waste a lot of time internally trying to convince other people. A small group can move fast. You have an idea today, you can move tomorrow,” she said.

Nonetheless, Maria planted the seeds of Rappler in the organization. She pushed an aggressive citizen journalism program, seeing that the mindset of traditional journalists were starting to change.

While previously elitist and snobby, Filipino journalists were starting to see the value in crowdsourcing their work. Citizens are frequently on the ground before a reporter gets there, and the recording capabilities of smartphones have drastically improved and fallen in price. Reportage is an expensive activity, and collaborate journalism has the potential to cut costs.

The media campaign, which ran during the 2007 general elections, combined broadcast media with the internet, mobile phones, and social media in an effort to push for clean elections.