This year, Time Magazine honors “Guardians” in the “War on Truth”, focusing on journalists who, in the face of threats, carry on to be vanguards of freedom of speech, truth, and democracy.
Time Magazine Editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, introduced them in their website, saying “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 for speaking out, the Guardians—Jamal Khashoggi, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Maria Ressa and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md.—are TIME’s Person of the Year.”
Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa, CEO of online news site Rappler, has always been known for her investigative journalism, tracing back to her stint as a former CNN journalist.
Rappler had received the irk of Philippine President Duterte, who called them “fake news”. But the site continued to do fact-checks on his public statements, and covered the administration’s controversial war on drugs, which have left some 12,000 people dead, according to a January estimate from Human Rights Watch.
Early this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revoked the registration of Rappler for allegedly violating the Philippine Constitution and the Anti-Dummy Law.
Last month, Maria Ressa and her news site were charged of tax evasion. Just yesterday, she posted bail at the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) over four of these charges, which Ressa called “a clear case of persecution.”
Jamal Khashoggi
Also recognized as Person of the Year is Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. This Saudi journalist was a known vocal critic of the Saudi Arabian leadership. He disappeared after going inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October for paperwork.
The Saudi authorities have admitted he was killed inside the building on the orders, they say, of rogue intelligence officers. But many believed he was killed on the orders of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, of whom he had been critical.
The CIA is reported to have concluded the killing was ordered by MBS, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner told Fox News that US intelligence agencies were still making their assessments.
Capital Gazette
In Annapolis, Md., staff of the Capital, a newspaper published by Capital Gazette Communications, saw tragedy when a gunman shot five of their colleagues in their newsroom on June 28.
Hours after the shooting, Chase Cook, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, posted on Twitter, “I can tell you this.” “We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” Indeed, they pressed on.
The man charged with their murders targeted the paper since it wrote about his harassment of a high school classmate—part of its routine coverage of local legal proceedings.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo
Aside from being killed and persecuted, journalists also face prison in their search for truth. Among them are Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were given seven years in jail in September for allegedly violating a state secrets act.
Kyaw Soe Oo initally worked for a local paper, and was hired by Reuters in 2017. He worked closely with Wa Lone, a hard-hitting reporter. Both citizens of Myanmar, they covered one of the biggest controversies in that year— the transfer of thousands of Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh, pushed out by Burmese forces.
On December 12, 2017, they were arrested after a dinner, by invitation of a police official. They had been investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men the official’s unit was involved in.
The magazine’s tradition of lauding individuals and groups started in 1927 as “Man of the Year”. It recognises the person who “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.
In 2017, Time Magazine named “the Silence Breakers” – women and men who rallied against sexual abuse and harassment – as its “Person of the Year”.
Watch this video from Time Magazine to learn more:
Photos from: Facebook/TIME
