On Tuesday, the Time magazine has collectively named Jamal Khashoggi and other persecuted journalists as its ‘person of the year’ for 2018.
Apparently, the accolade – given to ‘The Guardians and the War on Truth’ – also honours the journalists killed in the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland in June, two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar after investigating the massacre of Rohingya Muslims, and Maria Ressa, a journalist in the Philippines facing tax evasion charges that she has called ‘political harassment’.
“Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,” Time magazine’s editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, wrote in an essay about the selection. “This year we are recognising four journalists and one news organisation who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment: Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md.”
It has been more than two months since Khashoggi’s disappearance, Saudi Arabia is still facing international condemnation over his brutal murder and alleged dismemberment at the hands of a Saudi hit team. The 61-year-old’s body has still not been found and is thought by Turkish investigators to have been dissolved in acid.
Notably, Time magazine’s person of the year started in 1927, and recognises “the person or group of people who most influenced the news and the world – for better or for worse – during the past year”. This decision taken by the magazine’s editors.
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