Over the weekend, Time magazine named George W. Bush the “Person of the Year.” (Last year, you may recall, the “person” was “The American Soldier.”) The pop cultural significance of the “Person of the Year” (previously known as the “Man of the Year”) has long been on the wane, but that hasn’t stopped Time‘s marketers from trying to wring every ounce of publicity they can from this hoary tradition, in the hopes that the issue announcing the choice might sell as well as, say, one wondering What Would Jesus Eat?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
But there is something a little disconcerting about the fact that Time‘s sister, CNN, spent the weekend relentlessly plugging the “Person of the Year” issue. Both CNN and Time are Time Warner properties, and no doubt the corporate types saw CNN’s nonstop coverage of the non-story as a shining testament to synergy — if not to journalistic integrity. Yesterday, CNN personalities uttered the phrase “Person of the Year” 41 times, according to a search of the transcripts. And that doesn’t count the CNN special in which Time‘s editors explained their choice. In case you missed the point, on “CNN Sunday Night” anchor Carol Lin informed the audience that “Time‘s person of the year special hits newsstands tomorrow.”
A few days before, incidentally, when Time For Kids announced its “Person of the Year,” CNN’s Daryn Kagan interviewed 11-year-old Time For Kids reporter John Aroutiounian about the choice. (For the second straight year, Aroutiounian and Co. chose The American Soldier.)
Cable networks other than CNN also dutifully jerked their knees and treated the Time announcement as a story, though with far less enthusiasm and frequency. And we’re pretty sure they didn’t touch the Time For Kids bombshell.
Once the holidays are over, perhaps both Time and CNN will focus more on reporting real news developments. Their editors and producers might even think about developing a synergistic multimedia package on the perils of media consolidation.
We’re betting Jesus just might approve.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.