Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, also a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, said on Wednesday that she found out about the award only hours after going to court post bail for tax evasion charges.
"What a strange day I had yesterday," joked Ressa during an interview in Manila.
"I found out from Twitter and last night Twitter just exploded and I had to stop and think because it's mixed, right? It kind of shows you with Khashoggi, with Wa Lone, with journalists who have been killed, it shows you how dangerous our job is today."
"I started the day going to court to post bail on four criminal charges and I ended the day as Time Person of the Year."
Time recognised journalists, including the slain Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi, in its annual special edition in what it said was an effort to emphasise the importance of reporters' work in an increasingly hostile world.
Ressa co-founded the online site Rappler, which has aggressively covered the government of President Rodrigo Duterte.
She was recently charged with tax fraud, with many in the Philippines seeing that as a reaction to Rappler's reporting.
Ressa maintains that her taxes had been paid properly.
Time cited four figures it called "the guardians." Besides Khashoggi and Ressa, they are the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where five people were shot to death in June, and Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who have been jailed in Myanmar for a year.
Ressa said government pressure simply forces journalists to do "a better job."
"We were forced to do a better job as investigative journalists. The more you try to silence alternative views, critical questions, the more you seem like you have something to hide,” says Ressa.
