On June 28, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the offices of The Capital, a newspaper serving Annapolis, Maryland. The gunman, Jarrod Ramos, shot and killed five employees with a shotgun.
Two others were injured while trying to escape. Ramos was arrested shortly after and is currently imprisoned while awaiting trial for the shooting.
Time magazine has chosen “The Guardians and the War on Truth” for its Person of the Year, and the staff of the Capital Gazette are among those being honored.
The magazine unveiled four covers on Tuesday featuring journalists whose work led to their arrests or their deaths.
In addition to the Capital Gazette staff, the honorees include slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were arrested in Myanmar and are represented on the cover in photos held by their wives; and Maria Ressa, editor of the Rappler news website in the Philippines.
TIME magazine names a group of journalists “who have taken great risks in pursuing the truth” as 2018 Person of the Year. The journalists include Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa and staff of the Capital Gazette. https://t.co/iiGzZKHl0J
— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) December 11, 2018
Washington Post columnist and US resident, Jamal Khashoggi, was brutally murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this year.
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Do, on the other hand have been sentenced to seven years in prison in Myanmar this last September for reporting on mass killings perpetrated by the military on Rohingya Muslims.
Former CNN bureau chief, Maria Ressa, who reported on Philippine President Duterte in a negative light. She has since been charged with tax evasion.
TIME Person of the Year:
This is one of the best choices they could possibly have made! Not 1 but 4 covers!
Maria Ressa, Jamal Khashoggi, Capital Gazette and Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Do
Thank you @TIME https://t.co/bquIeAWzLl
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) December 11, 2018