Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Time names journalists Person of Year
Time magazine on Tuesday 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 the Saudi Arabian 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 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte; and journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been jailed in Burma 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 morning, 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.”
Fred Ryan, the publisher of The Washington Post, said he applauded Time for using its much-anticipated annual award to highlight journalists’ work.
“Time Magazine’s choice to honor journalists who have lost their lives or the freedom to do their jobs is a powerful reminder of the critical role journalists play and the increasing dangers they face,” Ryan said in a statement. “We hope this recognition will prompt our nation’s leaders to stand up for America’s values and hold accountable those who attempt to silence journalists who cover our communities, or in Jamal’s case, an oppressive authoritarian government.”
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 Burma for almost 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 Burmese 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.
Police learned of their investigation and gave the two men documents in a meeting three months after the massacre. Shortly afterward, the reporters were arrested for possessing the documents, which they had not read, in a plot widely derided as a farce to punish them for their work — and as a warning to other reporters.
Their story was published in February, as they faced charges. In September, they were sentenced to seven years in prison despite testimony from an officer that the operation was a setup.
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 use of the term “fake news” to discredit critical reporting, Ressa has said.
“I think the biggest problem that we face right now is that the beacon of democracy, the one that stood up for both human rights and press freedom — the United States — now is very confused,” Ressa told Time.
Last year Time recognized people who came forward to report on sexual misconduct. Trump, this year’s runner-up, was Person of the Year in 2016.
The third-place finisher this year was special counsel Robert Mueller, who Time indicated could move up in next year’s rankings depending on the findings of his investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia.