WASHINGTON -- Slain Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi and the Capital Gazette staff were among a group of journalists who were named, collectively, as Time magazine's 2018 Person of the Year on Tuesday.
The announcement was made on NBC’s Today show.
“Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments," Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay about the selection. "This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization 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."
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Khashoggi, a well-known critic of Saudi Arabia and columnist for the Washington Post, who was killed shortly after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October to obtain marriage documents. His killing, allegedly orchestrated by the highest levels of the Saudi government, caused an international outcry, not least because President Donald Trump decided not to take strong action against the Saudis, a U.S. ally, over the affair.
Ressa is the editor of Rappler, an independent news website in the Philippines that has been highly critical of president Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Myanmar has accused Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo of breaching the country's official state secrets act while investigation atrocities with Rohingya refugees. Five members of the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis were killed earlier this year when a gunman blasted his way into their newsroom.
Time's Person of the Year recognizes "the person or group of people who most influenced the news and the world – for better or for worse – during the past year."
The accolade started in 1927 and the recipient is selected by Time's editors.
Previous honorees include India's Mohandas Gandhi, Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, John F. Kennedy and Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.
Among the 2018 finalists were: "Separated families," the more than 2,000 families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border this year in the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" crackdown on people entering the country illegally; Trump; special counsel Robert Mueller; "Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler; Christine Blasey Ford; and slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Last year, Time chose "The Silence Breakers," persons who triggered the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.
Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin are two of the most controversial choices. American aviator Charles Lindbergh was the publication's first Person of the Year, for making the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The flight lasted almost 34 hours.
