At the end of 2018, Washington Post’s Regina Cabato and Kristine Phillips sent me questions about Rappler.com and Maria Ressa for a story they were doing. A bit of that long-ish set or responses landed in their profile on Ressa. I asked if I could publish their questions and my answers on my site, and they said yes.

I always welcome the opportunity to flesh out my thoughts, especially at a time when too much is happening, and we can barely keep our heads above water. This is Part 1: On Ressa, Rappler, mode of production, its claims of independence, and global attention.

One of the things you wrote was Rappler “has fashioned itself internationally as the bastion of independent journalism in the country,” and it is “seen by the international community as the only local media company that’s worthy of mention in the time of Duterte.” What makes you say this, and what are other local media companies that you think also deserve the spotlight?

Even before Duterte, and obviously ever since, the real source of independent reporting would be the alternative media of the Left: Pinoy Weekly, Bulatlat, Manila Today, AlterMedia, Kodao. These are media practitioners and writers who have been doing the stories that are not covered by mainstream media, across the different Presidents, and yes, mainstream media includes Rappler. Some of these alternative media sites were already online long before Rappler even went live, and are the true “independents” if we are to use the word at all: they are not funded by a huge capitalist, they are covering the stories of the people, the ones that don’t make it to TV or radio news, and they are on the ground covering stories that no one else is covering.

When I say that Rappler “has fashioned itself as the bastion of independent journalism,” it really is also a question: when did it start even using the word “independent” to describe itself? Nowhere in the 2015 essay by Ressa which is where you’re led when you click on their About page is the word independent even mentioned. In this essay what we see are words that Ressa used to describe what they wanted to do: harness “the crowd” that was on the internet, measure emotions of this crowd, allow this crowd to decide. Anyone who was around in 2012 when Rappler was first launched would remember how Ressa’s standard response to anything, including criticism or valid questions about its strategies of reporting, or even just its content, was “let the crowd decide.” If independence was in any of its press releases, it certainly wasn’t a dominant spin. An aside: how do you even declare independence when you’re in fact dependent on the crowd? As Ressa tells Rappler’s readers in that 2015 essay: “We won’t be complete without YOU.” End of aside.

But “independence” sure was prominent in the Rappler Story that was written in October 2017 — at the bottom of which is a button that encourages us all to support “free and fearless journalism” by donating some cash. It also sure has become part of their narrative after Duterte propagandists highlighted the fact that foreign company Omidyar has been funding Rappler in the millions of dollars through PDRs.

And no, it does not matter that Ressa keeps insisting they’ve kept editorial independence; mode of production is simple: who funds you affects your whole production — certainly Rappler wouldn’t have grown the way it did if it didn’t get the millions from Omidyar? Certainly we should be looking at how Ressa can afford to go around the world in the time of Duterte, while keeping Rappler running, and the next thing we know she is reaping accolades? And the next think we know Ressa is getting the Press Freedom Defend Fund with the goal of raising $500,000 dollars “to cover legal fees for news organizations unfairly targeted by governments or powerful figures.”

I’d like to think that if and when the editorial heads of alternative media had the capital to do exactly what Ressa’s been doing, networking across the world, getting the mileage she needs for herself and her company, that the Time Person of the Year award and the funding from non-government press organizations would go to another journalist and group altogether — media entities that have been fighting for freedom of the press and democracy across multiple Presidents, long before Rappler even started?

An important note: in the early years of Rappler, if not through much of its existence, one of the nagging questions about it was who its funders were. It’s unclear to me if they were transparent in the years before Duterte, but it’s important to note that before this controversy with its funders, few knew that Omidyar was even part of the picture — certainly it wasn’t part and parcel of the narrative the media company sold about itself.

Compare the funding sources of Rappler to say, any of the websites and media practitioners in alternative media that have little funding, few bodies to go around, and with stories no one else tells. Anyone who’s paid attention to Philippine media would know that if what we are looking for are independent media outlets that have been at the forefront of telling the important stories, without fear or favor, without big corporate funding, and across the different leaderships, that wouldn’t be Rappler.

In our interview with Maria, one of the things she noted was that she — as Rappler’s CEO and founder — is a journalist first, so the truth matters over business. (She added that she and other leaders in the newsroom were willing to cut their own personal salaries to keep people on their team.) Without saying that other newsrooms self-censor, she did note that many other local media companies are run by corporate magnates — and that could contribute to why, in the international eye, Rappler seems to stand alone. As somebody who’s been observing culture and media in the Philippines, any comment or response on this?

These claims are interesting to me for two reasons. First, the comparison Ressa draws between Rappler and other local media companies based on how the latter are run by corporate magnates completely silences the obvious parallel: that Rappler meanwhile has been fueled by foreign funding. Whatever accolades Ressa or Rappler have gotten, and no matter how they spin it, or how they try to rationalize the decision to accept Omidyar funding, it doesn’t erase the fact that at the very least, this makes the entity as tainted as the next media company run by oligarchs or businessmen. In fact, the next person would say Rappler’s done it worse: it pretended to be better than the others, when in fact it was worse — at least ABSCBN and GMA are run by local corporate magnates whose politics, alliances, and interests are easy to glean if not are transparent. One can’t say the same for Omidyar and Rappler.

Second, the assertion that this state of affairs (corporate magnates running other media companies) “could contribute to why in the international eye Rappler stands alone” makes it seem as if the international media is forming its own informed opinion about the state of media in the country, when that is farthest from the truth. In reality, one senses that this “international eye” is at the mercy of the local mainstream news cycle, which means it’s primarily looking at who’s making the news, which in the Philippines is equal to who has the capital to get mileage. This “international eye” is listening to those who are doing the networking, traveling the world, i.e., those who have the cash to make the most noise and make it heard. And if this “international eye” even had a sense of the state of media in this country as a whole, they would know that who’s making the news is not equal to who’s doing most relevant, important, or urgent work; it doesn’t even mean those who are most fair or credible.

The point I’m making is simple: if the international media and organizations are looking at Rappler, it’s because Ressa has made sure that they are looking at Rappler. Has she ever even so much as mentioned the longer-running alternative media entities that have been fighting State violence and oppression before Rappler even started? Of course not. Has international media so much as contextualized Rappler in the role it played during, say, the Aquino administration and its own foibles as far as free speech and State violence are concerned? Of course not.

Whoever the international media “sees” is not necessarily that person who is most deserving of the attention. There is no better proof of this than Rappler itself, which to me is the least oppressed if we are to contextualize it in the media entities that are doing the groundwork for stories on the Lumad and indigenous peoples, the violence of mining and development projects; if we are to look at the journalists and media workers whose lives are actually endangered on the ground and not just claim online threats as their badges of honor. This is not to make little of what Rappler’s reporters have experienced, but in this context, what Ressa etal have gone through is nothing compared to journalists, lawyers, activists, health workers, scientists, labor leaders, farmers, peasants, indigenous peoples who are actually being killed because they are fighting for our basic rights. ***