For one of the winners, getting to the Nobel prize ceremony in Oslo on Friday was touch and go. Maria Ressa faces criminal charges in the Philippines that could earn her a 100-year jail sentence. As a result, she needed the court's permission to leave the country - but it was obvious to everyone that she was not a flight riskSomeone who might flee the country in order to escape punishment.. Maria Ressa does not run away from anything.

Her acceptance speech packed a powerful punch, focusing on the damage done by fake news on social media and the threat to journalists from authoritarianEnforcing strict obedience to authority. governments. In the Philippines, she noted, 89 journalists have been killed in the last 20 years.

Tech companies, she said, allowed "a virus of lies to infect each of us".

"Without facts, you can't have truth. Without truth, you can't have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world's existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth.

"Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that's coursing through our information ecosystem."

Born in Manila but brought up in the US, Ressa became CNN's leading reporter in Asia, specialising in investigating terrorist networks. In 2012 she set up the news website RapplerThe name is a combination of rap and ripple., which reported on Rodrigo DutertePresident of the Philippines since 2016.'s use of illegal violence in the war on drugs. She even got him to admit to killing three people.

In 2016 Rappler exposed the government's use of social media to spread lies about its critics.

Ressa shared the prize with Dmitry Muratov, editor of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which has been critical of the government. Its targets have included Sergey Kiriyenko, a former prime minister whom it accused of embezzling £3bn.

Six of its journalistsThe most famous, Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered in 2006. She had written about abuses by both Russian and Chechen forces during the war in Chechnya.   have been killed, while others have been branded "foreign agents". Muratov spoke of their profession going through "a dark valley".

 "Many of our colleagues have lost their jobs. Some have to leave the country. Some are deprived of the opportunity to live a normal life for an unknown period of time. Maybe for ever." 

Journalists, he added, were an antidoteA cure for something. It originally meant a medicine against poison. to tyranny. "Yes, we growl and bite. Yes, we have sharp teeth and a strong grip. But we are the prerequisiteNecessary before something can start. for progress."

Not everybody, however, sees journalists as an admirable species. Last week the actress Sienna Miller received substantial damages from the publisher of The Sun, which she accused of hacking her phone. She said that the newspaper very nearly ruined her life:

"Their behaviour shattered me, damaged my reputation - at times beyond repair - and caused me to accuse my family and friends of selling information that catapulted me into a state of intense paranoia and fear."

Some say, no: it needs money to support it, but responsible media are losing readers and revenue to news sites which peddle gossip and prejudice. Authoritarian regimes know that they can threaten, imprison and even murder journalists without facing serious consequences.

Others argue that there are many thousands of good journalists in every corner of the world doing their bit in the great battle for truth and justice. There will always be brave people like Ressa and Muratov who are determined to pursue the truth no matter what they are threatened with.