Time Person of the Year

"Man of the Year" redirects here. For films of this title, see Man of the Year (film).

Past Person of the Year covers (clockwise from upper-left): Charles Lindbergh, 1927; The American Fighting-Man, 1950; Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979; The Computer, 1982; Rudy Giuliani, 2001.

Person of the Year is an annual issue of U.S. newsmagazine Time that features a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

History

The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year began in 1927, when Time editors contemplated what they could write about during a slow news week. Primarily, they sought to remedy an editorial embarrassment from earlier that year when the magazine did not put aviator Charles Lindbergh on its cover following his historic trans-Atlantic flight. At the end of the year, they came up with the idea of a cover story about Lindbergh being the "Man of the Year."

Since then, a person, group of people (either a team of select individuals or a demographic category), or in two special cases, an invention and the planet Earth, has been selected for a special issue at the end of every year. In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year in an effort to avoid sexism. However, the only women to win the renamed award so far were those in 2002 who were recognized as "The Whistleblowers" and, jointly with Bill Gates and Bono, Melinda Gates in 2005. Four women were awarded the title when it was still Man of the Year: Corazon Aquino in 1986, Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-Shek) in 1937 and Wallis Simpson in 1936. However, women would also be included in several groups, namely "Hungarian Freedom Fighter" in 1956, U.S. scientists in 1960, "Twenty-Five and Under" in 1966, "The Middle Americans" in 1969, "American Women" in 1975, "The American Soldier" in 2003, and "You" in 2006.

Since 1927, every serving President of the United States has been a Person of the Year at least once with the exceptions of Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford.

File:Einstein TIME Person of the Century.jpg

Albert Einstein as Person of the Century

The December 31, 1999, issue of Time named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi were chosen as runners-up.

Controversy

The title is frequently mistaken as being an honor. Many, including some members of the American media, continue to wrongly perpetuate the idea that the position of "Person of the Year" is a reward or prize, despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that many admirable people have been given the title—perhaps the majority. Thus, journalists will frequently describe a new person of the year as having "joined the ranks" of past "winners" such as Martin Luther King. The fact that people such as Adolf Hitler have been granted the title as well is often less well-known. There was a massive public backlash in the United States after Time named Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979. Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing anti-American figures. Time's Person of the Year 2001—in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks — was New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, although the rules of selection ("the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news") made Osama bin Laden a more likely choice. Previous choices such as Hitler were cited to demonstrate that Person of the Year did not necessarily mean "best human being of the year." The issue which declared Rudolph Giuliani as Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to make Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979 and the 1999 rejection of Hitler as "Person of the Century." The article seemed to imply that Osama bin Laden was a stronger candidate than Giuliani for Person of the Year and Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein for Person of the Century, but they were not ultimately selected due to what the magazine described as their "negative" influence on history.

According to reports, Time's editors anguished over the choice, reasonably fearing that selecting the al-Qaeda leader might offend readers and advertisers. Bin Laden had already appeared on its covers on October 1, November 12, and November 26. Many readers expressed dissatisfaction at the idea of seeing his face on the cover again. In the end, Giuliani's selection led some to criticize that Time had failed to uphold its own declared standards.

Professional wrestler Mick Foley was leading the online poll for Man of the Year in 1998 before being removed as a candidate.

In recent years, the choices for Person of the Year have also been criticized for being too U.S.-centered, which is a departure from the original tradition of recognizing foreign political leaders and thinkers. Until Bono received the shared title in 2005, Time had gone over a decade without recognizing a non-American individual. A breakdown by nationality also shows that more than a half of the people who have ever been selected for the title have been Americans. Furthermore incumbent US Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter were designated Men of the Year in the years of the election that led them to the high office in the following year, without them necessarily having been influential in any other way at the time.

File:TIME Person of the Year 2006.jpg

"You" as Person of the Year 2006.

Another criticised choice was the 2006 selection of "You", representing most if not all people for advancing the information age by using the internet. (viz. blogs, YouTube and MySpace) Talk shows, other magazines and news outlets derided the choice as pandering to readers, and not being an accurate reflection of a year that saw many events unfold. In addition, it was remarked that user-generated content is a trend, not a person. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart referred to the selection as "a joke," and Slate Magazine labeled the selection as "just stupid."

The online poll for the 2006 person of the year results are as follows: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez got a 35%. Second was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at 21%. Then came Nancy Pelosi at 12%, The YouTube Guys 11%, George W. Bush 8%, Al Gore 8%, Condoleezza Rice 5% and Kim Jong-il 2%.[1]

Persons of the Year

Year	Awardee	Lifetime	Notes
1927	Charles Lindbergh	1902–1974	first and youngest person chosen
1928	Walter Chrysler	1875–1940
1929	Owen Young	1874–1962
1930	Mahatma Gandhi	1869–1948	first non-American person chosen
1931	Pierre Laval	1883–1945
1932	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882–1945
1933	Hugh Johnson	1882–1942
1934	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882–1945	2nd time chosen
1935	Haile Selassie I	1892–1975
1936	Wallis Simpson	1896–1986	first female chosen
1937	Chiang Kai-Shek	1887–1975	first couple chosen
	Soong May-ling	1898–2003
1938	Adolf Hitler	1889–1945
1939	Joseph Stalin	1878–1953
1940	Winston Churchill	1874–1965
1941	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	1882–1945	3rd time chosen
1942	Joseph Stalin	1878–1953	2nd time chosen
1943	George Marshall	1880–1959
1944	Dwight Eisenhower	1890–1969
1945	Harry Truman	1884–1972
1946	James F. Byrnes	1879–1972
1947	George Marshall	1880–1959	2nd time chosen
1948	Harry Truman	1884–1972	2nd time chosen
1949	Winston Churchill	1874–1965	2nd time chosen; Man of the Half-Century
1950	The American Fighting-Man		representing Korean War troops; first abstract chosen
1951	Mohammed Mossadegh	1882–1967
1952	Queen Elizabeth II	born 1926
1953	Konrad Adenauer	1876–1967
1954	John Dulles	1888–1959
1955	Harlow Curtice	1893–1962
1956	Hungarian Freedom Fighter
1957	Nikita Khrushchev	1894–1971
1958	Charles De Gaulle	1890–1970
1959	Dwight Eisenhower	1890–1969	2nd time chosen
1960	U.S. Scientists		represented by Linus Pauling, Isidor Rabi, Edward Teller, Joshua Lederberg, Donald A. Glaser, Willard Libby, Robert Woodward, Charles Draper, William Shockley, Emilio Segrè, John Enders, Charles Townes, George Beadle, James Van Allen and Edward Purcell
1961	John F. Kennedy	1917–1963
1962	Pope John XXIII	1881–1963
1963	Martin Luther King, Jr.	1929–1968
1964	Lyndon Johnson	1908–1973
1965	William Westmoreland	1914–2005
1966	The Generation Twenty-Five and Under
1967	Lyndon Johnson	1908–1973	2nd time chosen
1968	Apollo 8 astronauts		Frank Borman (born 1928), Jim Lovell (born 1928) and William Anders (born 1933)
1969	The Middle Americans
1970	Willy Brandt	1913–1992
1971	Richard Nixon	1913–1994
1972	Richard Nixon	1913–1994	2nd time chosen
	Henry Kissinger	born 1923
1973	John Sirica	1904–1992
1974	King Faisal	1906–1975
1975	American women	1776–1974	represented by Betty Ford, Carla Hills, Ella Grasso, Barbara Jordan, Susie Sharp, Jill Conway, Billie Jean King, Susan Brownmiller, Addie Wyatt, Kathleen Byerly, Carol Sutton and Alison Cheek
1976	Jimmy Carter	born 1924
1977	Anwar Sadat	1918–1981
1978	Deng Xiaoping	1904–1997
1979	Ayatollah Khomeini	1902–1989
1980	Ronald Reagan	1911–2004
1981	Lech Wałęsa	born 1943
1982	The Computer		first non-human abstract chosen
1983	Ronald Reagan	1911–2004	2nd time chosen
	Yuri Andropov	1914–1984
1984	Peter Ueberroth	born 1937
1985	Deng Xiaoping	1904–1997	2nd time chosen
1986	Corazon Aquino	born 1933
1987	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	born 1931
1988	Endangered Earth		Planet of the Year
1989	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	born 1931	Man of the Decade
1990	George H. W. Bush	born 1924	Bush was referred to as "The Two George Bushes"- this is not a reference to George W. Bush but to how George Bush Sr. was complimented for international affairs and criticized for domestic affairs (including for his quote "Read my lips- no new taxes.")
1991	Ted Turner	born 1938
1992	Bill Clinton	born 1946
1993	The Peacemakers		Nelson Mandela (born 1918), F.W. de Klerk (born 1936), Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) and Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995)
1994	Pope John Paul II	1920–2005
1995	Newt Gingrich	born 1943
1996	David Ho	born 1952
1997	Andy Grove	born 1936
1998	Bill Clinton	born 1946	2nd time chosen
	Kenneth Starr	born 1946
1999	Jeffrey P. Bezos	born 1964
2000	George W. Bush	born 1946
2001	Rudolph Giuliani	born 1944
2002	The Whistleblowers		Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom (born 1963), Sherron Watkins of Enron (born 1959), and Coleen Rowley of the FBI (born 1954)
2003	The American Soldier		2nd time chosen
2004	George W. Bush	born 1946	2nd time chosen
2005	The Good Samaritans		Bono (born 1960), Bill Gates (born 1955) and Melinda Gates (born 1964)
2006	You		Internet-based user-generated content (uploading via blogs, web 2.0, MySpace, youtube and other means)
2007	Jamie Weir (not luke denne)	born 1989

See also

• Canadian Newsmaker of the Year (Time), the magazine's equivalent for Canadians only

External links

• Yearly Time covers
• Person of the Year stories