Rappler at 10: There at the Creation

The Philippines’ pioneering and embattled digital news site just marked a decade of tenacious reporting. A reporter who was there at the beginning recalls the heady early days and the dedication to journalism that led to last year’s Nobel Peace Prize for founder Maria Ressa. Read the full piece: https://asiafoundation.org/2022/02/16/rappler-at-10-there-at-the-creation/

Transcript

Natashya Gutierrez (00:00):

She told me about this new idea that she had, which was Rappler, and I could not for the life of me understand what it all meant. And she was talking about citizen journalism and social media and veteran journalists working with digital natives, all of these terms that I just wasn't really familiar with, but I was sold.

Tracie Yang (00:20):

A happy, scrappy birthday to Rappler today on InAsia, from the Asia Foundation. I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (00:26):

I'm John Rieger. If you're a friend of Press Freedom, you've heard of Rappler, pioneering Philippine news site known for discomforting the powerful, battling online disinformation, and not incidentally, winning a Nobel Peace Prize last year for co-founder and CEO, Maria Ressa, whose tenacious reporting and advocacy have drawn a series of controversial legal actions by the Philippine government.

Tracie Yang (00:48):

With all that, Rappler is just 10 years old. And our guest today was there at the creation. Now VICE Media's Editor in Chief for the Asia-Pacific, Natashya Gutierrez showed up at Rappler in 2011 with just a bachelor's degree and a whole lot of ambition. She was also an Asia Foundation Development Fellow in 2018, which makes her an old friend. Natashya Gutierrez, welcome to InAsia.

Natashya Gutierrez (01:11):

Thank you, Tracie. Thank you, John. It's a pleasure for me to be here.

John Rieger (01:15):

Natashya, in your portrait of Rappler's early days, you describe a new-fangled operation that seems to have run mostly on coffee and enthusiasm. How did you find your way to Rappler and what were those early days like?

Natashya Gutierrez (01:26):

I love telling this story because even for me, it feels very surreal. So I had always known I wanted to be a journalist, but at the university that I was in, journalism wasn't a major. I wanted to report on news from Asia, it's where I grew up, I care deeply about the region. And there are a few journalists that I've always looked up to, one of them being Maria. Maria Ressa, at that time, was running the Philippines' largest news network, ABS-CBN.

Natashya Gutierrez (01:57):

And so being scrappy and young and hungry and naive, which apparently, were all good things, I slid into her DMs as they call it nowadays on Twitter and basically introduced myself. And she, basically, within two hours said, "Let's get on a call." And she told me about this new idea that she had, which was Rappler. And I could not for the life of me understand what it all meant. And he was talking about citizen journalism and social media and veteran journalists working with digital natives, all of these terms that I just wasn't really familiar with, but I was sold. And I packed my bags a year after graduating from college and flew home to Manila without telling my parents or anybody because I knew that there would be a lot of this disapproval because what even was Rappler and why would I come home for a news website? But I did, and the rest is history.

Tracie Yang (02:54):

What I love is you call yourself a millennial journalist. For John's sake, can you tell us what you mean by that?

John Rieger (03:02):

Hey.

Natashya Gutierrez (03:05):

When I say millennial journalist, my advantage is that when I entered journalism, I had nothing to undo, I had nothing to unlearn.

Tracie Yang (03:12):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Natashya Gutierrez (03:12):

I never was a print journalist, I was never a TV journalist.

Tracie Yang (03:16):

Right.

Natashya Gutierrez (03:16):

Multi-media journalism was just completely different so we were on the field reporting, shooting our own stuff, editing our own stuff. Oh, and don't forget to tweet and file your story, by the way. And imagine asking that of a journalist who's only done one of those things, was just getting to know Twitter, had never edited a video in their lives to suddenly do all of that. So it was...

Tracie Yang (03:41):

Right.

Natashya Gutierrez (03:41):

... I think that's what I mean when I say millennial journalist. It came more naturally to us because we knew social media so instinctively, more than the veteran journalists or anybody else did really.

John Rieger (03:54):

What was your workday like? I mean, it must have been exhausting to not have a crew to support you.

Natashya Gutierrez (03:58):

Yeah, that's exactly it. And Maria said, "You are going to be a one-man team," which I think many journalists might have been, "No thank you." But to somebody who was as naive as myself and didn't know any better. But yes, we were alone on the field and it got pretty intimidating being young and being new then sort of having everyone really look at you with your little iPhone on a tripod while you're reporting in front of it and then tweeting... It was just so much so fast. But what I didn't know then was that it was training me for today because this was the future of news and we were just ahead of everybody else.

John Rieger (04:39):

Do you recall a story where suddenly you felt like you were over the hump of the learning curve, where you said, "Yes, I nailed that,"?

Natashya Gutierrez (04:47):

For me personally, I was 26 when I got my first libel case from a woman who was accused of stealing government funds, she was colluding with lawmakers, and I was able to have some exclusives around that story, so much so I guess that she filed a libel case against me. But that's when I realized that it didn't matter what medium you had, that if you had a good story and at the end of the day it was the quality of your content, regardless of where it lived, it could make a difference, it could impact policy, it could demand accountability from the government, which really at the core of journalism is all you could really ask for.

Tracie Yang (05:33):

That must be really intimidating, your first libel suit.

John Rieger (05:36):

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:05:37] by a powerful...

Tracie Yang (05:37):

I know. How did your colleagues react?

Natashya Gutierrez (05:41):

I was so nervous when I first got the lawsuit, I was terrified. I was so young. I think I'd only been in journalism for two years, maybe three, but this is so telling of Rappler. The moment I walked into the newsroom, the first time that I walked into the newsroom, after the lawsuit, they stood up and applauded.

Natashya Gutierrez (06:03):

An investigative journalist, the late Aries Rufo, who I admired so much and who had revealed a lot of corruption in the Catholic church in the Philippines, which is obviously a huge story...

Tracie Yang (06:13):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Natashya Gutierrez (06:14):

... came up to me and gave me a huge hug and he said, "Girl, you've made it."

John Rieger (06:22):

These are difficult times for democracy and press freedom around the world, and Rappler has certainly attracted its share of online trolls and political enemies at home, how important is Rappler's work today?

Natashya Gutierrez (06:36):

I couldn't explain to you just how important Rappler is to the country today. I think that when I was there, the trolling had started and the state-sponsored abuse online, online abuse had started, and I think what Maria has done in terms of trying to tell the world about the role of Facebook and their impact on democracies is important.

John Rieger (07:09):

That has been excellent work.

Natashya Gutierrez (07:10):

Yeah.

John Rieger (07:11):

And it has really extended the influence of Rappler well beyond the Philippines.

Natashya Gutierrez (07:14):

That's exactly right. And Marie had flagged that very early on and said, "This is happening in the Philippines, it's influencing our elections, it is impacting and silencing journalists, and this is going to be happening elsewhere." And at that time, no one was really paying attention. But years later, Cambridge Analytica themselves have said, "Yes, we had candidates in the Philippines reach out to us, and that the Philippines was a petri dish because it is an English-speaking nation with incredible penetration in social media. So many people are on Facebook from the Philippines. This is the perfect country where we can experiment what we could use in the U.S., in the UK, and elsewhere."

John Rieger (08:05):

Meanwhile, Rappler and, particularly, Maria Ressa have been hit with various legal actions having to do with foreign ownership laws, that kind of thing. I mean, with the government's might arrayed against it, as seems to be the case, is Rappler still able to be effective in this environment?

Natashya Gutierrez (08:24):

That definitely changed our priorities when that happened. So at that time, in 2016, I was actually in Jakarta running our first international bureau. And then Maria said, "We need you back. We need you to come home because we need all hands in deck." We had to shift our priorities to suddenly fight an administration that was silencing us. And that took up all of our efforts and it took up a lot of money, it took up a lot of time, it took up a lot of emotional and mental space that we could have used to report more. So I would actually say it was a successful attack in the beginning, and then the lawsuits started happening.

Natashya Gutierrez (08:56):

But Maria and the team just refused to cower. We found ways to be able to raise funds, to raise awareness of what was happening in the Philippines, so much so that here we are 10 years later with a Nobel Peace Prize, which is just incredible work and it is still astounding, but it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. And we were lucky that we had the resources to keep on going.

John Rieger (09:20):

Tracie.

Tracie Yang (09:20):

Well, we can't let you go without mentioning your time as an Asia Foundation Development Fellow so we can brag about it. What did you take away from that program?

Natashya Gutierrez (09:32):

I absolutely loved that fellowship. And at that time I was with Rappler and what I liked about it was just being able to see how all of our fields intersected. I mean, there were incredible people, obviously, in my cohort, people who were fighting human trafficking in Vietnam. But that fellowship really brought us together, made me realize just how everything was connected and that defending democracy is not something that you can do alone.

Tracie Yang (10:03):

Natashya Gutierrez, thank you for being with us today.

Natashya Gutierrez (10:06):

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.

John Rieger (10:08):

And that's our show. Natashya has pinned a loving 10th birthday tribute to Rappler that's well worth reading in this week's InAsia blog.

Tracie Yang (10:15):

And don't forget that subscribey thing we mention every week. You know, where you subscribe to our podcast?

John Rieger (10:21):

Don't worry, we'll remind you next time too. Until then I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (10:25):

And I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (10:26):

Thanks for listening.