It is a meeting expected every year.
The
Time Magazine
designated this Friday US President-elect Joe Biden and his next Vice President Kamala Harris "
Persons of the Year
".
This distinction, over 90 years old and relayed around the world, is steeped in mystery.
"
The person of the year
" - "
POY
", for insiders - is "
the person or people who have most influenced the news and our lives, for good or for bad
", recalled the former deputy editor. of the weekly, and current editor of
Vanity Fair
, Radhika Jones, in the columns of
Time
, in 2013.
Read also: Meredith Kopit Levien takes the reins of the
New York Times
The prize is therefore not a reward.
Hitler was appointed in 1938, followed by Stalin in 1939 - and a second time in 1942. The Chosen One can also be a thing or a collective.
In 1982, the magazine named the first
non-human
"
POY
", the "
Computer
".
In 2017, a collective, the "
Silence Breakers
", notably designating the people who revealed the Harvey Weinstein scandal, obtained the title.
Time magazine named the “Silence Breakers” “Person of the Year” on December 6, 2017
.
"The Silence Breakers" refers to a wide range of people, mostly women, who have accused disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and shared their stories of abuse using the hashtag #MeToo and its foreign language equivalents.
TIME INC.
/ BILLY & HELLS / AFP
The weekly maintains the secrecy around the production method of the title.
The American media did not respond to the
Figaro's
solicitations
but it provided some answers in 2015 on the Quora forum.
"
TIME editors rely on a wide range of opinions to choose the personality of the year
", revealed the magazine.
More specifically, in September, a meeting is organized during which “
editors and editors have 5 minutes to present a candidate and try to convince that he or she will be the '' POY ''
” of the year.
Readers can also give their opinion online.
This year, “
essential workers
” on the front lines in the fight against Covid won the poll.
Besides this meeting and the consultation of Internet users, the mystery remains unresolved.
“
By the time the personality of the year is revealed, only a handful of
Time
employees
know the decision,
” the newspaper explains.
“
I worked at Time for almost two decades and never knew the person of the year before Oklahoma printers
,” confirmed one of the magazine's editors, Belinda Luscombe. , in 2014. “
There's an air of 'swashbuckling' to all of this: lots of password protected files, a bunch of secret meetings and sometimes brown paper on the windows of office doors
», Confided the journalist.
The finalists even have code names.
"
A force of history
"
To understand the interest of this price, we must go back to its genesis.
In 1927, the editors of
Time Magazine
realized that they had failed to cover Charles Lindbergh, says Radhika Jones, in 2013. The American is the first aviator to have connected New York to Paris without stopover and solo - which earned him the nickname "
the lone eagle
" - in May 1927. To compensate for this "
oversight
", the editors decided to put it on the cover several months later by titling "
l 'man of the year
'.
Their idea has become a tradition and beyond the media event, a way of leaving a mark in history.
“
The challenge is, on the one hand, to try to decide who best represents the news of the year.
But the choice must also have archival value.
You must have the feeling that it will stand the test of time
", explains Radhika Jones in 2013. It must be"
someone, or in rare cases, something, which looks like a force of history
», Summarizes the journalist.
The
Time
appointed Donald Trump "Personality of the Year" in 2016 for his electoral victory that has rewritten the rules of politics, putting to the head of a divided America.
NADAV KANDER / TIME INC.
/ AFP
This explanation is not enough to silence the critics.
On the contrary, for some, the only interest of "
POY
" is to sell more.
“
A group of
Time
editors
sit down and pick someone they think will sell a bunch of magazines.
It's their way of writing an end-of-year summary, oriented around a figure,
”blames a user, in response to that of the weekly on Quora.
Personality of the Year “
is one of the magazine's great marketing tools and its trademark.
In a period when readers rarely go to newsstands, this helps boost sales,
”explains Jean-Clément Texier, media specialist at
Le Figaro
.
But for him,
Time
is not to blame for all that.
“
The magazine press, more than the daily press, has in its DNA the need to 'make moves' in order to sell.
It is, moreover,
totally consistent with
Time's
desire
not to be just an American newspaper and to go beyond its borders,
”adds the expert.
The choice of “
personality of the year
” is also sometimes the subject of criticism.
The appointment of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, for example, had created controversy.
In 2001, it was the attribution of the title to the mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, instead of Osama bin Laden, which had sparked the debate.
"
You
" ( "
you
", Ed) named "
POY
" in 2006 to honor individuals who have had a role in the development of Internet and communication via social networks had also provoked jeers.
Read also: Greta Thunberg named personality of the year by Time magazine
Last year the title, awarded to Greta Thunberg, a figure in the fight against climate change, had also raised criticism.
The Swede became, at 16, the youngest “personality of the year” in history.