Rappler’s Ressa among Time’s Person of the Year

Time magazine named four journalists and a newspaper yesterday as its 2018 Person of the Year for standing up for the truth in the face of persecution and violence.

The group, which Time calls the “guardians,’’ includes Rappler chief executive officer Maria Ressa, who has been ordered arrested; slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five people were shot and killed at the newspaper’s offices in June; and Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been detained in Myanmar for nearly a year.

“They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world – as of Dec. 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 – who risk all to tell the story of our time,’’ editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay.

Time selected them “for taking great risks in pursuit of greater truths, for the imperfect but essential quest for facts that are central to civil discourse, for speaking up and speaking out.’’

Reesa is an award-winning journalist who, along with the online news service she heads, has been sued for tax evasion. Her website has been critical of the government of President Duterte, and she claims the charges are politically motivated.

Khashoggi was killed two months ago when the Washington Post columnist, who had lived in the US, visited Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Turkey for paperwork so he could get married. He had been critical of the Saudi regime.