Journalist Maria Ressa, the founder of news website Rappler who’s currently facing a multitude of legal woes lodged against her by the Philippine government, has been chosen by Time magazine as one of its Persons of the Year for 2018. Time made the announcement on its official website and social media accounts yesterday.
Ressa is just the second Filipino to be chosen as the Person of the Year. Former president Corazon Aquino was the first Filipino chosen by Time and appeared on the magazine’s cover in 1986.
Ressa is part of a group of journalists Time is calling “The Guardians.”
Apart from Ressa, other persons of the year include: Saudi Arabia’s Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at his country’s consulate in Istanbul; Myanmar’s Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, Reuters reporters who were jailed for writing about the human rights violations of the Rohingya people; and the staff of the American magazine Capital Gazette, whose five journalists were killed when a lone gunman attacked their office earlier this year.
Time has published multiple versions of its cover featuring each Person of the Year.
However, in the Burmese journalists’ case, their wives Chit Su Win and Pan Ei Mon were photographed, each of whom is shown holding a photo of them. All covers were photographed by Moises Saman.
Says Time‘s creative director D.W. Pine: “By featuring four distinct covers, we were able to amplify different voices from around the world. In the process of just doing their jobs, our cover subjects faced dangerous threats in what continues to be a global war on the truth.”
Saman, who has also been targetted for his work in journalism, said that the images of the journalists convey how the press is being attacked.
“I wanted to find a way that somehow conveyed this sense of being under siege in a way — how the profession is under siege, not just in the U.S. but in many parts of the world. I was going for this sort of dark, harsh light and shadows. But also sort of portraying a sense of being steadfast,” he said.
Time said that it chooses its Person of the Year based on who has “most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse.”
They are not necessarily good people — for example, Adolf Hitler was chosen in 1938.
Previous Persons of the Year include United States president Donald Trump in 2016 and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015.
Ressa and Rappler are currently facing five cases lodged against them by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Ressa called the charges “politically-motivated,” owing to Rappler’s testy relationship with President Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte once called Rappler “a fake news outlet” after it published a report about how his special assistant, Christopher “Bong” Go allegedly got involved in the selection of suppliers of the Philippine Navy’s Combat Management System.
He also ordered the Malacañang Palace’s Internal House Affairs Office to ban Ressa and Rappler reporter Pia Ranada from entering the Palace.
In an interview with Time, Ressa said that her work as a war reporter is easy compared to dealing with the attacks of the government and its supporters.
She said: “I’ve been a war zone correspondent, I’ve planned coverage when one side is shooting against the other side. That is easy compared to what we’re dealing with now.”
