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posted by chromas on Tuesday December 11 2018, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly

TIME Person of the Year 2018: The Guardians

Every detail of Jamal Khashoggi's killing made it a sensation: the time stamp on the surveillance video that captured the Saudi journalist entering his country's Istanbul consulate on Oct. 2; the taxiway images of the private jets bearing his assassins; the bone saw; the reports of his final words, "I can't breathe," recorded on audio as the life was choked from him.

But the crime would not have remained atop the world news for two months if not for the epic themes that Khashoggi himself was ever alert to, and spent his life placing before the public. His death laid bare the true nature of a smiling prince, the utter absence of morality in the Saudi-U.S. alliance and—in the cascade of news feeds and alerts, posts and shares and links—the centrality of the question Khashoggi was killed over: Whom do you trust to tell the story?

[...] In the Philippines, a 55-year-old woman named Maria Ressa steers Rappler, an online news site she helped found, through a superstorm of the two most formidable forces in the information universe: social media and a populist President with authoritarian inclinations. Rappler has chronicled the violent drug war and extrajudicial killings of President Rodrigo Duterte that have left some 12,000 people dead, according to a January estimate from Human Rights Watch. The Duterte government refuses to accredit a Rappler journalist to cover it, and in November charged the site with tax fraud, allegations that could send Ressa to prison for up to 10 years.

In Annapolis, Md., staff of the Capital, a newspaper published by Capital Gazette Communications, which traces its history of telling readers about the events in Maryland to before the American Revolution, press on without the five colleagues gunned down in their newsroom on June 28. Still intact, indeed strengthened after the mass shooting, are the bonds of trust and community that for national news outlets have been eroded on strikingly partisan lines, never more than this year.

And in prison in Myanmar, two young Reuters reporters remain separated from their wives and children, serving a sentence for defying the ethnic divisions that rend that country. For documenting the deaths of 10 minority Rohingya Muslims, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone got seven years. The killers they exposed were sentenced to 10.

This year brought no shortage of other examples. Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam was jailed for more than 100 days for making "false" and "provocative" statements after criticizing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in an interview about mass protests in Dhaka. In Sudan, freelance journalist Amal Habani was arrested while covering economic protests, detained for 34 days and beaten with electric rods. In Brazil, reporter Patricia Campos Mello was targeted with threats after reporting that supporters of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro had funded a campaign to spread false news stories on WhatsApp. And Victor Mallet, Asia news editor for the Financial Times, was forced out of Hong Kong after inviting an activist to speak at a press club event against the wishes of the Chinese government. Worldwide, a record number of journalists—262 in total—were imprisoned in 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which expects the total to be high again this year.

This ought to be a time when democracy leaps forward, an informed citizenry being essential to self-government. Instead, it's in retreat. Three decades after the Cold War defeat of a blunt and crude autocracy, a more clever brand takes nourishment from the murk that surrounds us. The old-school despot embraced censorship. The modern despot, finding that more difficult, foments mistrust of credible fact, thrives on the confusion loosed by social media and fashions the illusion of legitimacy from supplicants.

Also at Reuters, CNN, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and MarketWatch.

See also: How We Chose the Guardians
K-Pop Band BTS Wins Time Reader's Poll For Person Of The Year


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:31AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:31AM (#773207)

    Here, just from today, with Daily Mirror telling a lot more of the truth than virtually every other news outlet:

    https://i.redd.it/6v9d0qxkyo321.jpg [i.redd.it]

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:56AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:56AM (#773216)

    Just because you misunderstand simple terms doesnt mean the educated do.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:06AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:06AM (#773219)

      What they take things out of context then twist them to fit whatever they want?

      Maybe you are not as smart as you pretend to be. That is just an example from *today*. If you want you can find you things from a hundred years ago if it would make you feel better about your 'education'.

      They are straight up lying to us. But do not take my word for it. Maybe you can ask Elon Musk what he thinks about 60 minutes (you know one of the stalwarts of 'good news'). He is on twitter and usually responds.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:17AM (#773223)

        Its a simple timeline shift.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:54AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @01:54AM (#773238)

        An article on wswswswsws today may be relevant to your journalistic insterests. UK government’s role in anti-Corbyn campaign exposed [wsws.org]

        It's likely the entire MSM is compromised by the intelligence services, as in the intelligence services aren't merely "anonymous sources." It's impossible to trust anything from the MSM. We need to look to independent media for the real journalists who dig for the truth.

        the Daily Fail tho.... I guess we'll see if there's anything to OP's link if Truthdig or Counterpunch or similar has something to say.

        • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:04AM (#773265)

          Add The Root [theroot.com] to that list.

          After befriending a white child at her school, Adams was told to end her life by other students.

          “She was being bullied the entire school year, with words such as ‘kill yourself,’ ‘you think you’re white because you ride with that white boy,’ ‘you ugly,’ ‘black bitch,’ ‘just die’.”

          Then

          Adams’ family says that McKenzie had been bullied during kindergarten at Linden Elementary before she was transferred. In a statement, Linden School District Superintendent Timothy Thurman refuted their claim.

          “There is no record of any bullying during that time and there’s no note as to why she withdrew,” he said. “She transferred to U.S. Jones Elementary School in Demopolis and she’s been there ever since.”

          Read as there's no government record of the kindergarten bullying claim, which does not mean that it didn't happen, only that the government employees in proximity to the alleged bullying did not make a record of it. Thurman's statement is pure CYA and certainly does not refute the claim.

          What government employee wants to make a record that could only come back to haunt them?

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:11AM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:11AM (#773377) Journal

      Wait, I thought it was literally impossible for black people to be racist under the modern definition of racism, you know the one that requires a person not merely be bigoted, but also "privileged".