I am Person of the Year

And so are you. In the era of blogs and YouTube, I can see the logic behind this choice - but I can't help thinking it's a cop-out for an award once meant for the top newsmaker of the year, not necessarily someone to be honoured. (Past winners include Hitler, Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini.)

If the old criteria still applied, Time's managing editor says Iran's Holocaust-denier-in-chief probably would have won:

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year. "But if you choose millions of people, you don't have to justify it to anyone."

The magazine did cite 26 "People Who Mattered," from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to Pope Benedict XVI to the troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

And Stengel said if the magazine had decided to go with an individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the likely choice. "It just felt to me a little off selecting him," Stengel said.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at December 17, 2006 11:00 AM