Time Magazine has announced that it has named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg the “Person of the Year,” despite the billionaire’s decidedly lukewarm showing in the online poll on their website.
As of last night the leader by a strong margin was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with the only close second being Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
Needless to say either of them could have been a “controversial” choice: Assange because of the ongoing calls from top US officials to assassinate him and Erdogan because his only claims to fame were his role in criticizing Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara and his efforts to negotiate a deal on Iran’s nuclear program – both of which earned him serious scorn among US officials.
It is difficult to fathom how it could not be Assange, however, as he has surely had more impact on foreign policy the world over in 2010 than anyone else.
Not that Mark Zuckerberg is a terrible choice, he’s just a really boring choice, as evidenced by the public ambivalence in the pre-announcement poll. Assange was really head and shoulders above the rest of the list, and it seems it was only the desire to make the announcement as uncontroversial as possible which prevented his selection.
Time magazine is cowardly to a fault. That's all the people need to know.
Time magazine is also completely irrelevant, just like its competitors U.S. News and World Report and Newsweek, the latter of which was sold several months ago for one dollar (a ripoff even at that price). Why anyone in the 21st Century pays Time and anything it has to say even a microsecond of serious attention is simply unfathomable. Frankly, if I were Julian Assange, I'd consider any attention by an Establishment rag like Time to be a detriment to my cause.
Changing times and pure cowardice. For their Man of the Year, they didn't have any problem in the past naming Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. What makes Assange so much worse than those two?
Actually bin Laden never got it. The 2001 choice was the similarly unpleasant Rudy Guiliani, however
You're absolutely right, Jason. They did do Putin and, even worse, Bernanke who has done far more harm to this country than Assage could ever do.
Hitler was Times man of the year in the mid 1930's.
Oh come on. Wasn't that back in the time when Hitler was admired for reinvigorating the economy and FDR was fawning over Mussolini's Keynesian successes and decided to try that locally?
And Stalin was in there twice! And Haile Selassie (what the hell??)
http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/Man-Of-…
The Luce family would have turned in their graves if Julian won.
TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults – Onion.com spoof
What do you expect from a mainstream media magazine that had Bernanke as POTY last year and Dubya' _twice_ as POTY, once in 2000 and again in 2004?
Actually selecting Zuckerber is not innocently boring but actively evil:
1. He stole FaceBook from the people who hired him to work on it for them: http://www.newser.com/story/107214/winklevoss-twi…
2. He as utter contempt for his customers as human being and no evident moral integrity: http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuc…
3. He shills for the empire in the assault on our privacy http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/11/…
He is the man of the year for those who believe in breach of contract, theft, contempt for customers and destruction of privacy. Far far worse than merely "boring".
All the reason you mention are the same reasons Time uses to determine their person of the year.
Excellent Post! I could not agree with you more. I definitely learned from it. Thank you.
http://politicalreviewonline.com/
We are putting too much in a establishment periodical. Americans want to be told they are so super and on the right path. This is not the 1960s press that helped spearhead freedom for oppressed African Americans, why do we pretend it is? Time magazine is half serious, and the other half a 'people magazine', a celebrity-driven puff-journal. Americans want to be told that we are fighting extremists, although real readers of serious journalism are shown what the Afghan war really is.
The American public wants to feel good, and serious news does not always sell. They don't to know that their uncle (Sam) lied, and turned a quick semi-victory in Afghanistan into the trap every informed military historian told them it would be. Facebook, was a way for rich kids at an "elite" university, to socialize inside their exclusive gated community. The same political class that screws up our current country: Obama, Clinton, Bernenke, Keagan, all the Goldman Sachs influence peddlers. They run this country, all the rest of us fight for scraps.
Did anyone ever see the escapist movies they did during the Great Depression?
Dogs, zombies, sheeple and humanoids deserve no better than scraps. Human beings stand up for their RIGHTS, but they are just a tiny minority.
On the bright side as long as all of the news outlets bend-over backward to censor them selves to conform with the regimes wishes we don't need outright censorship laws
It's just another sign of arrogance and disrespect of the people.
I hope those who are still buying it and voted for Assange will stay away.
Maybe Time was also pissed that they werent chosen among this to publish the cables:-)
Would have made them a lot of bucks…
Time as well as the rest of the US media are alll cowards as they demonstarted in the run to the war against Iraq.They rather feed the American public pure lies and trash masqurading as news.
Americans like to be lied to, the world, politicians, pretend christians[biblical harlots] and businesses all know this,it's just Americans who don't.
Let's think this through.
Julian Assange invented a new use for the Internet: a depository for whistle blowers to hold corrupt, secretive governments and large corporations accountable to the people. It was a significant development for democracy and justice.
Mark Zuckerberg invented the most popular–and not even the first–of several similar sites that allow the Internet to be used to see how fat your ex-lovers have gotten. It was a significant development for using the technology chiefly as a distraction.
Maybe Time chose on the basis of who breached more people's privacy.
man/person of the year is designed to highlight the person who had the greatest
impact – for good or evil – through the year. so why wouldn't hitler or bin laden
or gw be suitable choices? sure, they're evil, but look what they accomplished!
Is it just me or does this choice highlight the stark contrast of a Julian Assange in today's media market? Rather than providing 'pop journalism', Mr. Assange has acted like a journalistic adult and provided REAL reporting and REAL news. This pick just magnifies the irrelevance of TIME as a reputable publication.
http://politicalreviewonline.com/
My favorite in the list of Time's Man of the Year is 1975:
American Women.