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Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Time Picks "Killed and Imprisoned Journalists" as the Person of the Year

In a rather self-absorbed move, Time magazine picked killed and imprisoned journalists as the person of the year.  Really?  Other than Kashoggi, the Saudi guy who was killed in the embassy in Turkey, I doubt that most people could name any killed or imprisoned journalist from 2018.  Indeed, Kashoggi's name would likely not be known by even half of the people polled, and Kashoggi wasn't even a journalist.  In fact, Kashoggi was someone who wrote occasional opinion columns for the Washington Post, but that hardly transforms him from an activist/agent (which he was) into a journalist.  Indeed, Kashoggi was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a supporter of terrorism in the Middle East.  So who were the other killed and imprisoned journalists?  For the few people who still read Time, I'll let them get the names there.

The point of the selection by Time, however, is not actually to remember these people.  No, it is rather to take a shot at President Trump who has called the Fake News media the "enemy of the people."  Time is trying to say that by taking that position, Trump is contributing to the jailing or killing of supposed journalists around the world and here in the USA.

If you think about it, the Time move really could have no other purpose.  In 2015, most of the staff of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo was murdered in a terrorist attack which was the direct result of what the magazine had published.  Those were actual journalists who were killed for their work.  Time didn't even give them an honorable mention in that year.  In 2016, there were imprisoned journalists in large numbers in Turkey, Iran, China and other places.  Again, Time didn't even mention them.  The only difference this year is the Kashoggi case. 

 

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