Writer calls out Rappler’s lie of being independent: Ressa can’t even be honest about funders!

Acclaimed writer Katrina Stuart Santiago scoffs at Rappler’s claim it’s an independent media entity.

In a June 18 Facebook post, Santiago said Rappler’s founder and chief executive officer, Maria Angelita Ressa, has never come clean about the website’s financiers.

Rappler’s claim of running a small newsroom is also misleading, Santiago added.

“[P]lease ‘a small office with over 12 reporters’? Sige, 12 reporters and how many editors earning how much cash, since 2011? And since 2011, a bunch of us have asked about their funding sources, have talked about their biases, and guess what Ressa does: brings on the online mob against us,” she said.

American billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s investment in Rappler is well documented, though Ressa downplays his role in the company.

Santiago said Ressa’s refusal to be transparent about Rappler’s financiers is a reason why it shouldn’t be considered an independent media entity.

“This has been, will always be, my issue with the way Ressa has been fashioned as hero of Philippine democracy by the West and its media: they believe, hook line sinker that Rappler is an ‘independent’ media entity, without even a sense of how Bulatlat, Pinoy Weekly, Altermidya are the only ones that can lay claim to that label,” she said.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)