SAUDI JOURNALIST JAMAL Khashoggi and several other journalists have been named Time magazine’s Person of The Year under the group heading ‘The Guardians’.

Khashoggi was murdered in October this year at his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa and Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, currently imprisoned in Myanmar were also honoured. 

And the staff of the Capital Gazette in United States, where five members were killed in the shooting in June this year, were included. 

Edward Felsenthal, editor-in-chief of the magazine explained why ‘The Guardians’ are Person of the Year:

“Today, democracy around the world faces its biggest crisis in decades, its foundations undermined by invective from on high and toxins from below, by new technologies that power ancient impulses, by a poisonous cocktail of strongmen and weakening institutions.

From Russia to Riyadh to Silicon Valley, manipulation and abuse of truth is the common thread in so many of this year’s major headlines, an insidious and growing threat to freedom.

He said these journalists are honoured today for “taking great risks in pursuit of greater truths, for the imperfect but essential quest for the facts that are central to civil discourse, for speaking up and for speaking out”.