Many of TIME’s past picks have been deemed controversial by other media outlets. In 1999, the magazine changed the title from Man of the Year to “Person of the Year”. TIME has named a Man or Person of the Year since 1927, beginning with aviator Charles Lindbergh. In a 2017 article, TIME noted that “not every Person of the Year has wielded positive influence perhaps most notably, 1938’s Man of the Year was Adolf Hitler, with the added ominous prediction that he ‘may make 1939 a year to be remembered.'” “A lot of news is bad news and a lot of people who make bad news are very powerful people.”
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“The criterion is ‘the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year,'” the magazine said in a 2014 article. When contacted by AAP FactCheck regarding the post’s claim, Kristin Matzen, TIME’s director of communications, pointed to several articles the magazine has published over the years explaining the selection of Person of the Year. The title is a selection of the person or people who exercised the most influence over the news in that year – which is not necessarily an honour. While it is true that TIME magazine named Hitler as Man of the Year in 1938, the Facebook post implies a common misunderstanding of how the title is awarded. A post claims TIME’s choice of Hitler as Man of the Year shows why the media can’t be trusted. “Moral of the story: Mainstream media is NOT your friend,” it continues below.Īt the time of publication, the January 11 post has been viewed more than 16,000 times and shared more than 175 times.
![man of the year time man of the year time](https://static.feber.se/article_images/46/48/59/464859_1280.jpg)
“Never forget the fact Adolf Hitler was TIME magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ in 1938,” the text in the meme states above a picture of Hitler.
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A Facebook post claims TIME Magazine’s selection of Adolf Hitler as its “Man of the Year” is an example of why the mainstream media cannot be trusted.