It seems that we're skirting the elephant in the room here - the POTY issue of Time is a huge deal for them. There's tremendous amounts of ad revenue associated with it and there's a lot of pressure on them to put together an issue people want to read.
Yes, Assange made a distinct impact on the news and world events this year, but his face has been all over for this reason and that for weeks, and I think people are kind of sick of it. On top of that, he's hardly what one would call media friendly.
Facebook may seem like old news to us but, IIRC, it was this year that they crossed the 500M user mark. That's a pretty big deal. It sucks up 700 billion man-minutes a month, and that's only getting more out of control.
In hopes of avoiding a rant, let's just say this: if you had to write a major, year-defining (culturally, and for your publication) profile of someone, would you do it about the media figure with a hit movie "about" his life or the guy who has a tendency to walk out on interviews when he doesn't like a question?
I haven't known Assange to walk out. In fact, I'm listening to an interview between Assange and a BBC interviewer right now that basically constitutes hostile badgering and an utterly inappropriate line of questioning, including repetitive "How many women have you slept with?!?! Are you a sexual predator?!?!" questions, and Assange is taking it rather gracefully. I would have stopped the interview much earlier on if I had been asked the same questions in the same way. The interviewer interrupts Assange's answers and otherwise behaves himself badly, apart from the wholly inappropriate questioning.
Thanks for those links. I think he acted quite appropriately in both situations. He gave the CNN interviewer repeated warning and clearly did not want to walk, but felt obliged after she persisted, for the fourth or fifth time, in asking the same question.
The ABC interviewer received no such warning, but one can hardly blame that; when an interviewer starts leading into prurient detail about alleged rape like "allegation that you forcibly spread her legs", Assange's reaction of an immediate walk is appropriate, even if the interviewer is oblivious to the impropriety of the question.
I didn't ever mean to suggest that his actions were inappropriate - if you are the target of what appears to be a smear campaign, it makes sense to simply excuse yourself from this kind of confrontation.
That being said, if you were charged with creating a portrait of the man, I can understand some hesitation.
Which brings me to another point. Though Assange is clearly both newsworthy and influential, looking at the news leaves one with the sensation that his story is far from being played out. The narrative for Zuckerberg is pretty much resolved at this point. History will likely remember him more or less as he appeared in The Social Network, regardless of its accuracy. Assange's life and career, on the other hand, would necessarily leave off right before the exciting part, by virtue of it not having happened yet.
What I don't understand is why he just stands up and walks away. It seems impolite. Why not say, "I'm sorry, but I think that question is meant to manipulate your watchers, not inform them, so I won't be able to continue this interview".
Or better, point out that this is based on accusations which are being interpreted by the legal system, with good reason for privacy: not smearing him as a person, which has been violated by the leak. There's a little bit of irony there, but wikileaks doesn't do these kinds of leaks. If, for example, wikileaks were to receive a list of patients with AIDS from a central government database, they would not leak it. I imagine Julian believes in some privacy laws, such as those protecting people on trial from unproven accusations being used to smear their person.
Your argument seems backwards. The reason Wikileaks and Assange have been plastered all over everything is that there is a huge demand for information about them. There is no doubt that Time could have created a lot more interest and controversy and by extension sold more issues (thereby pleasing advertisers more) if they had been honest and ethical and put Assange on their cover, but evidently they have other priorities.
Honest and ethical? This isn't the Nobel Prize. The criteria for POTY is set by Time and can be bent and justified however they see fit. In 2006, it was everybody. It has also been "The Endangered Earth," "Middle Americans," and "The Computer."
They also opted to not include Hussein or Bin Laden. In 2001, it was Giuliani for his response to 9/11, and not anyone actually involved.
Suffice it to say, they have a vested interest in avoiding the more contentious choices. They are becoming less relevant every year, and it seems likely that a lot of their readership still thinks facbook is cool.
Hitler was a past MOTY -- so they didn't always skirt controversy. 60+ years later, I know that -- 60 years from now, no one will know who got it in 2001.
Perhaps 'ethical' goes too far. It depends on what the real basis was for such a dumb choice. Clearly they can choose whoever and however they want, but given the 'well duh' nature of an Assange pick and the prevailing political climate, it seems reasonable to question whether there more is going on than journalistic whimsy.
I don't think it's all that shocking that we don't measure the dead people in that metric. That's not pedantry, that's deliberately twisting words to make a true statement false and then chortling about it.
Yes, Assange made a distinct impact on the news and world events this year, but his face has been all over for this reason and that for weeks, and I think people are kind of sick of it. On top of that, he's hardly what one would call media friendly.
Facebook may seem like old news to us but, IIRC, it was this year that they crossed the 500M user mark. That's a pretty big deal. It sucks up 700 billion man-minutes a month, and that's only getting more out of control.
In hopes of avoiding a rant, let's just say this: if you had to write a major, year-defining (culturally, and for your publication) profile of someone, would you do it about the media figure with a hit movie "about" his life or the guy who has a tendency to walk out on interviews when he doesn't like a question?