Slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other reporters who’ve been killed or imprisoned were named Tuesday as Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2018.

The magazine dubbed its choice as “The Guardians and the War on Truth” — and the Person of the Year issue features four covers depicting Khashoggi, Philippines-based editor Maria Ressa, jailed Burmese Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and their wives, and the staff of Maryland’s Capital Gazette.

“Like all human gifts, courage comes to us at varying levels and at varying moments,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote in an essay about the selection, according to Today.com.

“This year we are recognizing four journalists and one news organization who have paid a terrible price to seize the challenge of this moment: Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md.”

Felsenthal revealed on NBC’s “Today” that President Trump was the magazine’s second pick for Person of the Year, while special counsel Robert Mueller was the third choice.

The shortlist also included families separated at the US-Mexico border, Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, Meghan Markle, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the March for Our Lives activists, and Christine Blasey Ford — who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh of sex assault.

But Time ultimately chose “The Guardians and the War on Truth” for “taking great risks in pursuit of greater truths, for the imperfect but essential quest for facts that are central to civil discourse, for speaking up and speaking out,” according to Felsenthal.

The four journalists and the Capital Gazette, which was targeted by a gunman who killed five employees in June, “are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world … who risk all to tell the story of our time,” he wrote.

At least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018 as of this week, Felsenthal noted.

Felsenthal told the “Today” show that Khashoggi’s inclusion marks the first time “we’ve chosen someone no longer alive as Person of the Year.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, is believed to have been savagely murdered on Oct. 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — sparking huge backlash against Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

“It’s also very rare that a person’s influence grows so immensely in death,” Felsenthal said of Khashoggi.

“His murder has prompted a global reassessment of the Saudi crown prince and a really long overdue look at the devastating war in Yemen.”

Time has made the Person of the Year designation — originally “Man of the Year” or “Woman of the Year” — every year since 1927.