“You” Have Been Named Time’s 2006 Person Of The Year
Posted December 17, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
So what did “You” do to deserve the title? The managing editor of the American edition of Time, Richard Stengel, said everyday people have revolutionized the information age, with more and more people using the Internet to get their message and opinions across by posting video, blogs, or by networking online.
“Individuals are changing the nature of the information age, that the creators and consumers of user-generated content are transforming art and politics and commerce, that they are the engaged citizens of a new digital democracy,” he explained.
“… this new global nervous system is changing the way we perceive the world. And the consequences of it all are both hard to know and impossible to overestimate.”
The title, which usually goes to a single person who has most affected the news, was named collectively this year due to the popularity of websites such as Myspace, YouTube and Wikipedia, which contain content that has generated several headlines over the past year.
This year’s runner-up is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the editors of the Canadian edition of the current events magazine have named Prime Minister Stephen Harper the Canuck newsmaker of 2006.
“Defying conventional wisdom about how to lead a minority government (very, very cautiously), Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister led Canadians on a bold, and discomfiting, journey of political change,” Time Canada’s contributing editor Stephen Handelman said.
“He slashed more than $1 billion worth of federal programs, reshuffled the federal bureaucracy, and reopened the wounds of the national unity debate by supporting Quebec’s right to declare itself a ‘nation.’ At the same time he has introduced a new standard of accountability for federal politicians, stewarded Canada’s first major deployment of troops to a combat theater in five decades and, for good measure, negotiated an end to a long-simmering trade wrangle with the U.S. over softwood exports.”
While ordinary citizens around the world are affecting the news with their blogs and images and other content, the Internet is allowing “You” to become an active participant in the delivery of the news on a local level as well.
CityNews viewers are encouraged to submit their pictures and video to our website’s It’s Your Story section. Many of the amateur breaking news submissions have been used on air.
Sign up for a del.icio.us account here to save your bookmarks for free online.
