Journalists picked as ‘Person of the Year’
Group known as the ‘Guardians’ includes slain Saudi, reporters
Time Magazine honors what it calls “The Guardians,” a group of reporters — including slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi — who have been targeted for their work to expose “the abuse of truth.”
Time magazine has announced its 2018 Person of the Year is “The Guardians,” four individuals and one group — all journalists — who this year helped expose “the manipulation and the abuse of truth” around the world.
They are the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post contributing columnist who was killed inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in October; the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland; journalist Maria Ressa, the chief executive of the Rappler news website, who has been made a legal target for the outlet’s coverage of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte; and journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been jailed in Myanmar for nearly a year for their work exposing the mass killing of Rohingya Muslims.
“As we looked at the choices, it became clear that the manipulation and the abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories, from Russia to Riyadh to Silicon Valley,” Time magazine editor Edward Felsenthal said on the “Today” show Tuesday, when the announcement was made.
Of Khashoggi’s selection, Felsenthal said it was the first time the magazine had ever chosen someone no longer alive as Person of the Year. But it wasn’t so much the brutal details about his death as the work he had done most of his life — holding Saudi Arabia’s government accountable — that solidified his legacy.
“It’s also very rare that a person’s influence grows so immensely in death,” Felsenthal said. “His murder has prompted a global reassessment of the Saudi crown prince and a really long overdue look at the devastating war in Yemen.”
Time also honored the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, where five staff members were shot to death in June after a gunman opened fire in their newsroom. Despite the tragedy, the Capital’s surviving staff persisted in their work in the hours, days and weeks afterward.
“I can tell you this,” Capital reporter Chase Cook tweeted hours after the shooting. “We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.”
Time also recognized journalists across the world.
On the “Today” show Tuesday, Felsenthal emphasized that the two Reuters reporters who were being honored, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, had been imprisoned in Myanmar for almost exactly a year.
The two had been covering the mass killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the country last September, and in their reporting had found Myanmar troops were complicit in the executions — part of a wave of killings, rapes and arson internationally condemned as ethnic cleansing of minority Muslims in the majority Buddhist country.
For her work in the Philippines, Felsenthal praised honoree Maria Ressa as an “extraordinary individual” who has relentlessly exposed the thousands of extrajudicial killings taking place as part of Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines.
Ressa’s outlet, Rappler, has distinguished itself for coverage of Duterte’s brutal drug war amid tightening access to news. A lack of online access has transformed Facebook into the de facto internet in the Philippines, Ressa has said, allowing Duterte’s government to filter and restrict reporting and criticism.
Duterte has been emboldened by President Donald Trump’s liberal use of the term “fake news” to discredit critical reporting, Ressa has said. Last year, Trump chuckled after Duterte cut off questions from American reporters, calling them “spies.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, was third, while Trump was runner-up, Felsenthal said.