Dr. Judea Pearl presented the award and delivered prepared remarks.
He opened by expressing profound honor in presenting the 24th LA Press Club Daniel Pearl Award to Maria Ressa, describing her as synonymous with courage and the aspiration to protect press freedom.
He quoted her Nobel Prize lecture warning that “Data is no longer just information… it has been weaponized like plutonium. By allowing algorithms to structurally alter human behavior for profit, society has granted geopolitical powers and authoritarian leaders an open window to destroy democratic institutions from the inside out.”
As a computer scientist specializing in AI and machine learning, Pearl said he felt partly responsible for creating this “digital plutonium,” but as a philosopher of science he believes AI tools can also help people understand and resist becoming complicit in its spread. |
| Dr. Judea Pearl and Maria Ressa the 68th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards Gala held at The Biltmore Los Angeles in Los Angeles Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Photo By Sthanlee B. Mirador/Sipa USA) Courtesy: AsianJournal.com |
(Video courtesy: Los Angeles Press Club)
On a personal note, Dr. Pearl stated that over the past three years his heart and mind had been deeply occupied with Israel, “a nation clinging to life as she struggles to withstand not only physical threats, but a sustained, libelous assault on her moral standing, led by outlets like Al Jazeera and echoed even by our reputable Reuters and the Associated Press.”
He then extended Ressa’s warning: “This dangerous plutonium is now used not just by authoritarian leaders, like Duterte and Putin, but by ideological forces like Iran, Qatar, and China who aim to re-engineer our perception of reality. They manipulate journalists to erode public trust in journalism, ultimately undermining both our democratic institutions and our shared humanistic values. Therefore, and urgently, we must seriously heed Maria’s warning and watch our steps carefully whenever we feel the temptation to echo this plutonium of disinformation, especially when it lures us to dehumanize my brothers and sisters in Israel.”
He closed by thanking Ressa for honoring his son Daniel by accepting the award and for continuing to inspire with her courage, wisdom, and character.
Maria Ressa’s acceptance speech focused on her personal connection to Daniel Pearl’s story, the evolving threats to journalism, and a call to action:
Ms. Ressa explained why the award mattered: as CNN’s lead investigative reporter before Rappler and the Nobel, she “chased terrorists for a living.” Her first book, *Seeds of Terror*, tracked al-Qaeda networks linking Southeast Asia (including planning in Manila in 1994) to what became the 9/11 attacks. In November 2001 she was in New Delhi tracking Omar Sheikh; he offered her an interview in Karachi. Her CNN features editor deemed it too dangerous and denied the budget, so she did not go. Weeks later, Omar Sheikh lured Daniel Pearl to a meeting in Karachi, handed him to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (whom Ressa had been chasing and who later confessed to masterminding 9/11), and Pearl was murdered. She said she has lived with that proximity every day since: the same network, the same city; her editor protected her, while no one made that decision for Pearl, who paid for the truth with his life.
She described journalism as going to places no one else will go, asking questions no one else will ask, and carrying the truth back. Pearl’s killers filmed the murder to terrify others into silence—but it did not work. Courage spreads just as fear does. She praised Judea Pearl and his family for turning the worst thing that can happen to a family into a light for others.
The threat has changed shape: from a camera and a knife to technology that floods the world with lies, turns truth-tellers into criminals, and operates at a scale Pearl’s killers could never have imagined. “The line now travels faster than the fact… And that is how democracy dies. Not with one blow, but… death by a thousand cuts.”
Her call: “We hold the line. We don’t duck. We don’t hide.” She recounted her own 11 arrest warrants and criminal charges under Duterte (she still needed Philippine Supreme Court permission to travel to the event), the long fight to win most of those cases, and the irony that Duterte was later arrested under an ICC warrant for crimes against humanity and is awaiting trial in The Hague—while some of Rappler’s work forms part of the evidence against him. She warned of the “Philippine-ization of America” and described the current moment as an “Information Armageddon” (the battle is ongoing, not over).
She closed by posing the question Pearl answered with his life—the same question she has posed to Filipinos and now to Americans: “What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?”
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