TIME selects ‘persecuted’ journalists as Person of the Year
Time named a group of journalists it called “the guardians” from “the war on truth” as its Person of the Year. All of those named “have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment,” Time editor in chief Edward Felsenthal wrote.
The group is led by the late Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was brutally murdered in October at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey.
The group also includes the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., where five people were shot and killed at the newspaper’s offices in June; Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who has been arrested; and Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been detained in Myanmar for nearly a year.
Felsenthal told NBC’s Today show that journalists beat out third runner-up, special counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating allegations of collusion between President Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, and Trump himself, the second runner-up and 2016’s person of the year.
The list also included Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford, March for Our Lives activists, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.
