Not named man of the year
The US IT press, which has a nasty habit of writing only
good news about Steve Jobs, is aghast that Time didn't name the Apple CEO its
“man of the year” for 2009.
There had been much speculation that Jobs was going to
win after he made the editor's short list alongside President Barack Obama,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, General Stanley McChrystal, Maine Senator
Olympia Snowe, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Jamaican sprinter Usain
Bolt, a gang of Somali pirates and a mob of Iranian protesters.
Unfortunately it depended on Apple fanboys being readers
of Time magazine and giving him votes. Since this depended on Apple fanboys
reading actual words rather than seeing nice icons, Jobs was doomed from the
start. The readers gave him 86,729 votes, behind only the
Iranian protesters and President Obama both of whom were about as useful as a
chocolate teapot when it came to bringing about any real change.
The nomination of Jobs was a bit silly as he was only at
work for six months this year. The rest of the time he was having a new liver
installed. Since we last looked “surviving 2009” was not a qualification for
the title “man of the year”. Managing editor Rick Stengel did his "reveal"
on NBC's Today Show it was Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke who had been named Time
Magazine's 2009 Person of the Year.
"Steve Jobs was an extraordinary guy, who influences our
lives in all sorts of ways, but not person of the year," Stengel said. "Looking on the bright side, at least the ubiquitous
Steve Jobs failed to win a gong, being beaten by a far more charismatic
candidate - a banker no one's ever heard of."
Jobs was very nearly Time's 1982 Man of the Year, but
Time decided to name the computer the Machine of the Year instead.