NEW YORK - Time magazine on Tuesday named
a group of journalists, including a slain Saudi Arabian writer
and a pair of Reuters journalists imprisoned by Myanmar's
government, as its "Person of the Year," in a cover story
headlined "The Guardians and the War on Truth."
The honour went to a series of journalists including Reuters
journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who the government
of Myanmar convicted on Sept. 3 under the colonial-era Official
Secrets Act in a case seen as a test of democratic freedoms in
Myanmar.
Also honoured was Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic
of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman. Khashoggi was killed two months ago at the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul when he went there to collect documents
for his forthcoming marriage.
The 95-year-old magazine also honoured Maria Ressa, the
founder of the Philippine news site Rappler that has been a
frequent critic of that nation's President Rodrigo Duterte, and
the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis,
Maryland, where a gunman shot and killed five people in June.
Time said it chose to honour journalism at time when the
practice critical democracy is under threat both from
governments and technological advances.
Its annual distinction
is intended to recognize the person, group, thing or idea that
had the greatest influence on world events that year.
"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, the Capital Gazette, Maria Ressa,
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo — are Time's Person of the Year 2018,"
Time editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal said in a
statement.
Ressa and her site were charged with tax evasion by the
Philippines' justice department in November.
The four groups were highlighted on four separate covers of
the magazine, one of which features the wives of the imprisoned
Reuters reporters embracing one another as they hold photos of
their husbands.