Time magazine "man of the year" misconception
The title is, in ignorance, sometimes mistakenly assumed to be an honour. There was a massive public backlash in the United States after Time named Ayatollah Khomeini 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".
Sorry to be such a pedantic bastard, but hey, that's kind of the point of this, eh?
( BobbyParadise, Sat 19 Mar 2005, 11:23, Reply)