TIME's managing editor Richard Stengler was on the Today Show this morning announcing that Mark Zuckerberg is the magazine's newly crowned Person Of The Year. In explaining how TIME made their selection he said that, although it was his ultimate decision, it was based on conversations with his editorial staff, past Person-of-the-Year selections, and the TIME's Reader Poll.
Sounded funny to me - so I looked into it. Going backwards over the past decade, the Person Of The Year winners are Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama, Vladamir Putin, "The Good Samaratins," George Bush, The American Soldier, The Whistleblowers, and Rudolph Giuliani. I'm not sure Richard spoke with any of these folks. Wait - I left out one past winner: You. And Richard didn't listen to You either.
In 2006 "You" were Person of The Year, "represented as the individual content creator on the World Wide Web." And if you look at the Reader Poll (above), "You" voted in droves and you placed Mark a distant 10th. In fact Mark received 4.8% as many votes as the winner, Julian Assange. Who, coincidentally, is a fairly vociferous defender of free speech.
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