Filipino journalist reflects on Nobel Prize win at Harvard

Maria Ressa says much still remains uncertain about her life one month after her historic Nobel Peace Prize win

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- One month since she was named the first Filipino to win the Nobel Peace Prize, journalist Maria Ressa says much still remains uncertain about her life.

Will her battle against a libel suit in the Philippines lead to jail time? Will she be able to travel to Norway to accept her prestigious award next month? When is the next time she’ll be able to see her family?

“You know the painting The Scream?” Ressa said Tuesday evening, holding her hands to her face and mock-bellowing into the existential void like the famed Edvard Munch work. “I wake up every day like that.”

“I don’t know where it will lead,” she continued during an interview at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shortly before delivering the university’s annual Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press. “But I know that if we keep doing our task, staying on mission, holding the line, that there’s a better chance that our democracy not only survives, but that I also stay out of jail. Because I’ve done nothing wrong except be a journalist, and that is the price we have to pay. I wish it wasn’t me, but it is.”