Time magazine has made a group of journalists its 2018 “Person of the Year,” referring to the reporters as “the Guardians,” which includes slain Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Arabian consulate Istanbul in October.
Sending out the message that it’s a dangerous time to be a journalist, Time magazine is pointing out that reporters around the world endure hardship, threats, attempts at manipulation, abuse, imprisonment or death for bravely seeking to report the truth.
In what the publication is calling “the War on Truth,” Time has released a series of four black-and-white covers to showcase its 2018 Person of the Year.
For the first time in the history of the publication, Time magazine has made a deceased person or persons its “Person of the Year.”
One cover features Jamal Khashoggi, alleged to be killed because of his reports on Saudi Arabia.
Another cover depicting “the Guardians and the War on Truth,” includes the journalists at the Capital Gazette, the Annapolis, Maryland newspaper where five employees were murdered by a gunman last June.
A third cover features Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two Reuters journalists who were arrested one year ago in Myanmar while they were working on stories about the killings of Rohingya Muslims, a minority population in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Because the two men are still imprisoned, their wives were photographed for the cover instead.
The fourth cover features Maria Ressa, who is the chief executive of the Philippine news website Rappler. Ressa was indicted last month on tax evasion charges. However, free speech and civil liberties advocates alleged that her arrest is part of a wider crackdown on dissent by the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
