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posted by cmn32480 on Monday December 14 2015, @12:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the corporate-agendas dept.

The Inquisitr reports:

On [December 7], Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won the readers' poll for TIME's Person of the Year, which was conducted online.

The 74-year-old Senator won by [a] landslide, beating out other world-renowned leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and even U.S. President Barack Obama.

[...] Bernie Sanders won [with] more than 10 percent of the total online votes, while his closest contender, Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani activist that fights for the education rights of girls in her country, only got 5.2 percent of the votes.

Aside from beating the U.S. president in the online poll, Bernie Sanders also overran his toughest competitors: Donald Trump (1.8%) and Hillary Clinton (1.4%).

[...] No U.S. presidential candidate has ever won the Person of the Year award prior to the results of the election. However, the fact that Sanders topped the poll is testament that there are still people who will choose to go for someone with whom they share similar views as opposed to someone who is "popular". [Submitter's quote marks; see "Nate Silver", below]

But while Sanders' cause may be noble, which is mostly likely why he earned the top spot in the Person of the Year online poll, it wasn't enough for him to take home the prize. Reportedly, Sanders' name was taken out of the short list from which the editors of TIME [were] supposed to make their choice for Person of the Year.

[...] TIME released the names of the eight finalists for the annual award on [December 8] [...] Sanders and his runner-up Yousafzai were not included in the list of finalists. The finalists included Putin, Trump, Rouhani, former Olympian and transgender Caitlyn Jenner, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Black Lives Matter activists, and Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of jihadist group Islamic State.

On [December 9], TIME announced the winner during NBC's Today show. Angela Merkel was the unanimous choice of the TIME editors, making her the second individual woman to ever win the award.

The editors second choice was Trump.

This complete disregard for the readers' poll is hardly unprecendented, as demonstrated by the results from 2006:
Hugo Chavez wins "Person of the Year" poll; Time magazine ignores result

Unsurprising to many, AlterNet reports that Trump's presence in corporate media's coverage of the presidential contest is wildly disproportionate to his acceptance by USAian voters.

Trump's true level of support, [according to phenomenally accurate pollster Nate Silver, is] 6 percent to 8 percent of the electorate--or roughly "the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked", the pollster said.

Previous: Bernie Sanders Leads TIME Magazine's Person of the Year Readers' Poll


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Monday December 14 2015, @03:09PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday December 14 2015, @03:09PM (#276123)

    I agree with you here. Its like when Obama got a peace prize before he even took office.

    Lets give these awards to people that have done something, not to candidates.

    That being said, that there is so much hand wringing over an essentially meaningless title is completely useless.

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday December 14 2015, @06:05PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday December 14 2015, @06:05PM (#276225)

    > Its like when Obama got a peace prize before he even took office.

    When your memory lies, Google is your friend.
    Obama got the fourth "you're not W" peace prize in 2009, right AFTER he took office. (the first three recipients were Carter, the IAEA, the IPCC).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @09:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @09:34PM (#276344)

      The Nobel Foundation Taken to Court on the Peace Prize [dissidentvoice.org]

      At the time when Alfred Nobel wrote his will, there was a clear division between those believing in the military way and those insisting on other ways to solve conflict through cooperation, international law, international institutions, arbitration, and global disarmament
      [...]
      The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law.
      [...]
      Can such a prize, with a so clearly stated goal, be turned to serve the opposite idea and be given again and again to recipients who promote arms races and believe in militarism and war?

      This question will soon be answered, after Mairead Maguire, Jan Oberg, Davis Swanson, and Lay Down Your Arms took the case to the Stockholm District Court on Friday 4th of December 2015.
      [...]
      The court case will test one of the most obvious violations of the Nobel idea of building global peace by peaceful means, namely the prize for the European Union in 2012 (the option to test the Obama prize in 2009, had lapsed --a three years limit applies)

      -- gewg_