Time Person of the Year: Difference between revisions

"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 worse, has most influenced events in the preceding 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."

File:Einstein TIME Person of the Century.jpg

Albert Einstein as Person of the Century

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.

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.

File:TIME Person of the Year 2006.jpg

"You", as Person of the Year 2006. Print copies of the magazine have on the cover a reflective Mylar surface in place of the computer screen, meant to reflect the reader's face.

There was a massive public backlash in the United States after Time named Ayatollah Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979, which caused thousands of subscribers to end their subscription. Since then, Time has generally shied away from choosing controversial candidates. Time's Person of the Year 2001—in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks — was New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. It was a somewhat controversial result; many thought that Giuliani was deserving, but many others thought that the rules of selection ("the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news") made the obvious choice Osama bin Laden. They cited previous choices such as Adolf Hitler to demonstrate that Person of the Year did not necessarily mean "best human being of the year." It is interesting to note that 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 stories in respected newspapers, 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.

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 the meantime.

Time For Kids, targeted at grade school and junior high students, has recently begun selecting a person of the year independent of the main magazine's selection. In 2005, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was named. For the 2006 year "The American Soldier" won person of the year.

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

Persons of the Year

File:Time-magazine-cover-charles-lindberg.jpg

Charles Lindbergh was the first Man of the Year

File:Stalintime2.jpeg

DictatorJoseph Stalin Person of the Year 1942

File:January 3, 1969 Time Magazine Cover.jpg

January 3, 1969 cover of TIME Magazine with the Apollo 8 crew

File:TIME cover Persons of the Year 2005.jpg

2005 Persons of the Year, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono

Year	Awardee	Lifetime	Notes
1927	Charles Lindbergh	(1902–1974)	(first 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)
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)
1942	Joseph Stalin	(1878–1953)	(2nd time)
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)
1948	Harry Truman	(1884–1972)	(2nd time)
1949	Winston Churchill	(1874–1965)	(2nd time) (Man of the Half-Century)
1950	The American Fighting-Man		(first abstract chosen)
1951	Mohammed Mossadegh	(1882–1967)
1952	Queen Elizabeth II	(b. 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)
1960	U.S. Scientists		(represented by Linus Pauling, Isidor Rabi, Edward Teller, Adam Fisher, Donald A. Glaser, Willard Libby, Robert Woodward, Charles Draper, William Shockley, Emilio Segre, 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)
1968	Frank Borman	(b. 1928)	Apollo 8 astronauts
	Jim Lovell	(b. 1928)
	William Anders	(b. 1933)
1969	The Middle Americans
1970	Willy Brandt	(1913–1992)
1971	Richard Nixon	(1913–1994)
1972	Richard Nixon	(1913–1994)	(2nd time)
	Henry Kissinger	(b. 1923)
1973	John Sirica	(1904–1992)
1974	King Faisal	(1906–1975)
1975	American women		(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	(b. 1924)
1977	Anwar Sadat	(1918–1981)
1978	Deng Xiaoping	(1904–1997)
1979	Ayatollah Khomeini	(1902–1989)
1980	Ronald Reagan	(1911–2004)
1981	Lech Wałęsa	(b. 1943)
1982	The Computer		(first non-human abstract chosen)
1983	Ronald Reagan	(1911–2004)	(2nd time)
	Yuri Andropov	(1914–1984)
1984	Peter Ueberroth	(b. 1937)
1985	Deng Xiaoping	(1904–1997)	(2nd time)
1986	Corazon Aquino	(b. 1933)
1987	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	(b. 1931)
1988	Endangered Earth		(Planet of the Year)
1989	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	(b. 1931)	(Man of the Decade)
1990	George H. W. Bush	(b. 1924)	(The Two George Bushes)
1991	Ted Turner	(b. 1938)
1992	Bill Clinton	(b. 1946)
1993	The Peacemakers: Nelson Mandela	(b. 1918)
	F.W. de Klerk	(b. 1936)
	Yasser Arafat	(1929–2004)
	Yitzhak Rabin	(1922–1995)
1994	Pope John Paul II	(1920–2005)
1995	Newt Gingrich	(b. 1943)
1996	David Ho	(b. 1952)
1997	Andy Grove	(b. 1936)
1998	Bill Clinton	(b. 1946)	(2nd time)
	Kenneth Starr	(b. 1946)
1999	Jeffrey P. Bezos	(b. 1964)
2000	George W. Bush	(b. 1946)
2001	Rudolph Giuliani	(b. 1944)
2002	The Whistleblowers		Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom (b. 1963), Sherron Watkins of Enron (b. 1959), and Coleen Rowley of the FBI (b. 1954)
2003	The American Soldier
2004	George W. Bush	(b. 1946)	(2nd time)
2005	The Good Samaritans: Bono	(b. 1960)
	Bill Gates	(b. 1955)
	Melinda Gates	(b. 1964)
2006	You (Yes, you!)		(Internet-based content creators)

Trivia

According to the Oxford English Corpus, time, person and year are lemmas of the three most common noun "content words" in the English language.

External links

• Yearly Time covers