Today at 19:44
Photo Times
Time Magazine recognizes journalists who have been targeted for their work as the Person of the Year.
These are journalists who are standing up for the truth and against misinformation, and are thus called the “guardians.” Their work is seen as the “war on truth.”
The four separate magazine covers were shot by photographer Moises Saman.
“We realized that there was something of a common thread that ran between many of them. Among the biggest stories of the year was this question of misinformation, the truth, its use and its abuse, and these guardians, who include Jamal Khashoggi, to reporters from Reuters, who are jailed in Myanmar simply for reporting facts, Maria Ressa, who is the founder and editor-in-chief of an investigative news site in the Philippines, and the staff of the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. That, after five of their colleagues were killed by an aggrieved subject of their coverage, they put out a paper the next day, and it continued to do that serving their community, as they have in one form or another since before the American Revolution,” Ben Goldberger, the assistant managing editor of the magazine said.
Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi embassy in Turkey.
In Maryland in the United States, a gunman walked into the offices on July 28 of the Capital Gazette and killed five members of editorial staff. The suspect had a longstanding grudge against the newspaper after unsuccessfully suing it for defamation in 2012, investigators later said.
Ressa founded her online news site Rappler in the Philippines in 2012, and it has since gained a reputation for hard-hitting, investigative journalism. It has been openly critical of President Rodrigo Duterte, questioning the accuracy of his public statements, particularly over his deadly war on drugs. In January this year, Rappler had its licence revoked by the state, igniting a national debate about press freedom. In November, Ressa and her news site were accused of tax evasion, something she said was a “clear form of continuing intimidation and harassment.”
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, both citizens of Myanmar, were sentenced to seven years in jail in September for violating a state secrets act. It stemmed from their work in September 2017 investigating the murders of 10 Rohingya men by the army in the northern Rakhine village of Inn Dinn. Their wives are featured on the cover holding photos of their husbands.
