Time Person of the Year

For those unfamiliar with "Person of the Year", it is an annual issue of Time Magazine, that awards a person or group of people which "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year" Previous winners of this award include (among others) ; Hitler, Staliin, Bush, Putin, Obama, and Trump. Justifiably, world leaders are often judged to be the most influential people in the world at the time. However, this year, Time Magazine threw a curveball. Just today, Time Maganize announced their 2018 person of the year. Time magazine has chosen "The Guardians," a group of journalists who have been targeted for their work, as Person, or more fittingly, People of the Year.

Among those were honored include Jamul Kushoggi, whom I wrote a blog post about earlier, detailing how he had been assasinted for voicing his opinion, a victim of supression. He had written critical pieces of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, who had him murdered in an embassy in Turkey.

Overall, there were 4 covers released by time magazine, the first being Jamal Kushoggi. Another was of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two journalists who were jailed by the Burmese government while investigating and reporting on the killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. For those who don't remember, last year, Muslims were being persecuted by the Burmese government. Ths was a crime that the United Nations called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The follwing cover is of  journalists at the Capital Gazette. Their office was the victim of an attack where five employees were murdered by a gunman last June. The final member(s) of the "Guardians" is Maria Ressa, chief executive of the Philippine news website Rappler. She was recently charged with tax evasion by the Filipino Government. This was an effort by Filipino Dictator/President Rodrigo Duterte to supress the press.


All of these Journalists have gone the hard yards, to tell important stories that corrupt governments did not want people to hear. In a world where the far right is growing fast across the globe, it has become very important that we do not allow supression of speech to succeed. Freedom of speech is the first and the most important amendament we have here in the United States. As Americans I believe that it is firmly our duty to champion that ideal around the world.