Person of the Year

From Free net encyclopedia

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."

Image:Poty.jpg

1 History
2 Controversy
3 People of the Year
4 Covers
5 See also
6 External links

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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 Charles 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. However, the only women to win the renamed award 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 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, and of course, American Women in 1975.

Image:Einstein TIME Person of the Century.jpg

Since 1927, every 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 Mohandas Gandhi were chosen as runners-up.

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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. Image:TIME cover Persons of the Year 2005.jpg 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 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 Americentric, which is a departure from the original tradition of recognizing foreign political leaders and thinkers. Until Bono received the title in 2005, Time had gone over a decade without recognizing a non-American individual.

The magazine's 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.

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People of the Year

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

1927: Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) (first person chosen)
1928: Walter Chrysler (1875–1940)
1929: Owen Young (1874–1962)
1930: Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
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) and Soong May-ling (1898–2003) (first couple chosen)
1938: Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
1939: Joseph Stalin (1879–1953)
1940: Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
1941: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) (3rd time)
1942: Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) (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")

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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, Joshua Lederberg, 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: Twenty-Five and Under
1967: Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973) (2nd time)
1968: The Astronauts; Frank Borman (b. 1928), Jim Lovell (b. 1928), William Anders (b. 1933)

Image:January 3, 1969 Time Magazine Cover.jpg

1969: The Middle Americans
1970: Willy Brandt (1913–1992)
1971: Richard Nixon (1913–1994)
1972: Richard Nixon (1913–1994) (2nd time) and 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, Billy 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) and Yuri Andropov (1914–1984)
1984: Peter Ueberroth (b. 1937)
1985: Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) (2nd time)
1986: Corazón Aquino (b. 1933)
1987: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (b. 1931)
1988: Endangered Earth ("Planet of the Year")
1989: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (b. 1931) (2nd time)

Image:TIME Gorbachev.jpg

1990: George H. W. Bush (b. 1924)
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), and 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) and 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), and Melinda Gates (b. 1964)

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Covers

Charles Lindberg, 1927	Walter Chrysler, 1928	Owen Young, 1929	Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, 1930
Hugh S. Johnson, 1933	Joseph Stalin, 1939	Winston Churchill, 1940	The American Fighting Man, 1950
Mohammed Mossadegh, 1951	Harlow Curtice, 1955	Pope John XXIII, 1962	Apollo 8 crew, 1968
Willy Brandt, 1970	Faisal bin Abdelaziz Al Saud, 1973	Ronald Reagan, 1980	Lech Wałęsa, 1981
Peter Ueberroth, 1984	Cory Aquino, 1986	Mikhail Gorbachev, 1987	Ted Turner, 1991
Jeff Bezos, 1999	Rudolph Giuliani, 2001	The American soldier, 2003	The Good Samaritans; Bono, Bill Gates , and Melinda Gates; 2005