Peter Greste and the “War on Truth”
At the end of every year Time Magazine awards an individual with the title “Person of the Year”. This year Time magazine has awarded that title to not one, but four journalists and a newspaper in a bold message that brings light to a worldwide attack on media freedom.
The people of the year renamed “the Guardians” in the “War on truth” include: murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who covers the atrocities committed by Filipino President Duerte and is now facing up to ten years in prison, imprisoned Myanmar journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo who investigated the murders of Muslim Rohingya men, and the small US newspaper “The Capital Gazette” which was attacked by a gunman in June for reporting on his court case, resulting in the death of five staff members.
The evocative cover gives human faces to the persecuted individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes in order to bring truth to the world.
We were joined by award winning journalist, Peter Greste, who knows this persecution first hand. While reporting for Al Jazeera in 2013, Peter and his colleagues were arrested in Egypt under the guise of terrorism charges. This attack on free media led Peter and his colleagues to spend the next 400 days in jail until a global campaign led to their release. Peter discussed the current state of journalism in light of the Time Magazine cover.
