But what happened to original principles of this award? Hitler was the person of the year for 1938. This award went always to the person with the highest impact on news. What the heck happened this year? Time magazine is becoming irrelevant.
However, I agree that the trend you're talking about definitely exists. The most egregious recent example is Rudy Giuliani instead of Osama bin Laden in 2001, a decision which looks even stranger today than it did nine years ago.
I agree. Facebook is after all the second most popular website.
> The most egregious recent example is Rudy Giuliani instead of Osama bin Laden in 2001
Indeed. They chickened out.
I feel that a far more gloomy and more likely scenario is that companies like Time, Mastercard, etc etc have not been pressured significantly or at all by government
The older you get, the more responsibilities and (financial) risk you have, the harder it becomes to think outside the box and swim upstream. I think it is perfectly plausible that people in their position decided on there own that supporting Assange was a step to far into a brave new world :-)
What were the results of the Iraq information Wikileaks released earlier this year? Besides getting coverage in the papers?
Also, consider how much is being done in the business world because of Facebook. Apple, Microsoft, Google - three giants in the industry - are practically dancing to Facebooks tune, reacting. Entire industries are popping up around the social network.
And there was even a movie.
While I don't doubt the good WL is doing, Zuckerberg is doing far, far more than many realize.
"What were the results of the Iraq information Wikileaks released earlier this year? Besides getting coverage in the papers?"
That is a very simplistic view. What would you expect the results to be, a going back in time and not starting the war? Truth is way more powerful than a simple gimmick of virtualising social interactions. Think, virtualising truth!
Besides, the Iraq files were only one thing. The superinjunction was another which caused actual and real change in the way of invalidating the superinjunction. The ambassador's files has revealed the true way those we trust see the world, etc.
Which means little according to the criteria of Times PotY. It's PotYear, not PotDecade, or Century, etc.
> That is a very simplistic view.
Not within the context of the discussion.
> What would you expect the results to be, a going back in time and not starting the war?
I think your missing the point. Zuck meets Times PotY critera more than WL or Assange. I'm not debating the value, merely which has had more impact this past year.
Feel free to debate the merits of Time's decision making process, but please do not to paint their views as mine.
Some other notable choices:
Joseph Stalin, 1939 Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979
I was going to draw parallels to Bill Gates getting the award, though it turns out that was in the '00s, for his philanthropy, not in the '80s for Microsoft. The '82 award to "The Computer" and '06 award to "You" are in the same vein, though (even if the second one was a bit silly).
I wouldn't assume malice just yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_published_by_WikiLe...
(Although weirdly it's not very obvious from the main "100" landing page)
I would say WikiLeaks should be "named" next year (depending on whether anything actually changes / consequences are met with the disclosures). Currently WikiLeaks is in its "infancy" of impact / effect.
(I’m not sure about your conspiracy theory, though.)
Saying “[…] it’s obvious Time magazine has been pressured to choose someone less controversial” (emphasis mine) seems a little too sure to me. I would rephrase that to “Time’s editors might have felt that picking Assange in the current political climate could have resulted in negative consequences, which, if it happened like that, really says a lot about media and politics in the US.”
In 1979 after they have chosen Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini, they had dramatical drop in subscriptions. That was the reason why person of the year for 2001 wasn't Osama Bin Laden although he was obviously the one with the biggest impact on news in the world that year.
Zuckerberg, though, created a tool that is used by many many people, and impacts much there daily life and the way they interact together. Facebook brought social networks to the masses.
Assange is in the runner-up, and history will tell what the right choice was.
Also finally, I would have expected the crowd here to be a bit more happy to see a geek - and startup founder - make the headline.
I don't know what Zuckerberg is doing there, but let's hold off on peddling completely unfounded conspiracy theories. More likely, and less unfounded: Old-style news organizations are scared positively pantless by the fact that a blogger (He's a guy with a computer, if that's not a blogger, WHAT IS!?) was in charge of not just one, but quite a few, of the top news stories this year.
Wut?