Slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other reporters who\u2019ve been killed or imprisoned were named Tuesday as Time magazine\u2019s Person of the Year for 2018.\u2026<\/b>
\nSlain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other reporters who\u2019ve been killed or imprisoned were named Tuesday as Time magazine\u2019s Person of the Year for 2018.
The magazine dubbed its choice as \u201cThe Guardians and the War on Truth\u201d \u2014 and the Person of the Year issue features four covers depicting Khashoggi, Philippines-based editor Maria Ressa, jailed Burmese Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and their wives, and the staff of Maryland\u2019s Capital Gazette.
\u201cLike all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,\u201d the magazine\u2019s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay about the selection, according to Today.com .
\u201cThis 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.\u201d
Felsenthal revealed on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d that President Trump was the magazine\u2019s second pick for Person of the Year, while special counsel Robert Mueller was the third choice.
The shortlist also included families separated at the US-Mexico border, Russian President Vladimir Putin, \u201cBlack Panther\u201d director Ryan Coogler, Meghan Markle, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the March for Our Lives activists, and Christine Blasey Ford \u2014 who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh of sex assault .
But Time ultimately chose \u201cThe Guardians and the War on Truth\u201d for \u201ctaking great risks in pursuit of greater truths, for the imperfect but essential quest for facts that are central to civil discourse, for speaking up and speaking out,\u201d according to Felsenthal.
The four journalists and the Capital Gazette, which was targeted by a gunman who killed five employees in June, \u201care representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world\u2026 who risk all to tell the story of our time,\u201d he wrote.
At least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 as of this week, Felsenthal noted.
Felsenthal told the \u201cToday\u201d show that Khashoggi\u2019s inclusion marks the first time \u201cwe\u2019ve chosen someone no longer alive as Person of the Year.\u201d
Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, is believed to have been savagely murdered on Oct. 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul \u2014 sparking huge backlash against Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
\u201cIt\u2019s also very rare that a person\u2019s influence grows so immensely in death,\u201d Felsenthal said of Khashoggi.
\u201cHis murder has prompted a global reassessment of the Saudi crown prince and a really long overdue look at the devastating war in Yemen.\u201d
Time has made the Person of the Year designation \u2014 originally \u201cMan of the Year\u201d or \u201cWoman of the Year\u201d \u2014 every year since 1927.<\/p>\n