Time's "Person of the Year" is Killed, Imprisoned Journalists Across the World

Time Magazine revealed on Tuesday its 2018 Person of the Year, dubbing a group of murdered or imprisoned journalists “The Guardians.”

The handful of journalists include killed Saudi reporter Jamal Khashoggi, the five employees of the Capital Gazette gunned down in their newsroom this past July, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo who were sentenced to serve seven years in a Myanmar prison and Rappler — a Philippines new site — CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa.

Khashoggi, arguably the most publicized figure of the group, was a Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident as well as a prominent journalist who dared to criticize Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was brutally killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, in October. This murder was ordered by bin Salman, the CIA concluded with “high confidence,” despite President Trump’s refusal to make a declarative statement about the horrific crime.

At the Capital Gazette newsroom in Maryland, four journalists and a sales associate — John McNamera, Rebecca Smith, Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman and Wendi Winters — were gunned down in a mass shooting by a man who loathed the newspaper’s coverage of his guilty plea in a criminal harassment case.

The Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to serve seven years in prison in Myanmar for breaking a colonial-era law while reporting on the military’s mass killing of Rohingya Muslims.

Former CNN bureau chief Maria Ressa, currently the CEO and executive editor of Philippine news site Rappler, has been garnered a “campaign of legal harassment” from President Rodrigo Duterte’s Department of Justice for its critical reporting of his regime.