2018 Time Person of the Year: The Guardians (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

LINK

This seems to become more absurd every year.

First, "The Guardians" isn't a person. It's people. Or rather, more like a specific profession or group of people. Calling any group the "Person" of the year is lazy and ridiculous.

Secondly, picking journalists just reaks of self-gratification. Yes, there were some extremely brave individual journalists that paid heavy prices. Picking one of them would have been a great idea. But taking the bravery of numerous journalists who were killed or imprisoned for their reporting and then taking their mantle to wrap around all journalists as "Guardians" against "misinformation" is a total joke. Even worse is the transition partway through likening the "plight" of US journalists to that of reporters in Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Darfur, the Phillipines, etc. Yes, our President's tantrums against the Press are terrible. No, the American Press aren't brave Guardians like those that are being tortured and murdered for reporting the truth.

 

[Guest]

I thought it was "of the Galaxy"

 

[D-Day]

I thought it was "of the Galaxy"

No way they could be named.  Quill basically helped kill half of the population because he couldn't control his temper.  "Star-Lord" indeed.

 

[Capella]

LINK

This seems to become more absurd every year.

First, "The Guardians" isn't a person. It's people. Or rather, more like a specific profession or group of people. Calling any group the "Person" of the year is lazy and ridiculous.

Secondly, picking journalists just reaks of self-gratification. Yes, there were some extremely brave individual journalists that paid heavy prices. Picking one of them would have been a great idea. But taking the bravery of numerous journalists who were killed or imprisoned for their reporting and then taking their mantle to wrap around all journalists as "Guardians" against "misinformation" is a total joke. Even worse is the transition partway through likening the "plight" of US journalists to that of reporters in Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Darfur, the Phillipines, etc. Yes, our President's tantrums against the Press are terrible. No, the American Press aren't brave Guardians like those that are being tortured and murdered for reporting the truth.

We literally had a newspaper staff get shot up this year. 

 

[Apple Jack]

Yep, they got his right.

 

[TobiasFunke]

LINK

This seems to become more absurd every year.

First, "The Guardians" isn't a person. It's people. Or rather, more like a specific profession or group of people. Calling any group the "Person" of the year is lazy and ridiculous.

Secondly, picking journalists just reaks of self-gratification. Yes, there were some extremely brave individual journalists that paid heavy prices. Picking one of them would have been a great idea. But taking the bravery of numerous journalists who were killed or imprisoned for their reporting and then taking their mantle to wrap around all journalists as "Guardians" against "misinformation" is a total joke. Even worse is the transition partway through likening the "plight" of US journalists to that of reporters in Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Darfur, the Phillipines, etc. Yes, our President's tantrums against the Press are terrible. No, the American Press aren't brave Guardians like those that are being tortured and murdered for reporting the truth.

This award is no more or less absurd than it has always been.  It is also no more or less absurd than any other subjective award based on poorly-defined criteria, be it an NBA MVP award or the Grammy for Best Album or a Presidential Medal of Freedom. At least here the people giving the award are trying to drive home an important point.

ETA: also your last sentence is very wrong IMO. American journalists in this environment are getting killed, they're getting bombs delivered to their doorsteps, and they get a steady stream of death threats, some of them incredibly disturbing.

 

[TheDirtyWord]

There are always worthy ‘candidates’...

Of the finalists...mine would have likely been ‘March for Our Lives’...

 

[Leroy Hoard]

I wonder if Trump will comment on this.

 

[wikkidpissah]

Awful choice.

Just as i blame this Presidency on the terrible condition of our federal govt and the citizens who allowed it, I blame the reactionary state of journalism on its practitioners. I've been a reporter, worked alongside top-flight political journalists like RWApple and Jack Germond and regularly thanked the powers that be for the keen eye and clear voice of great journalism. 

Then commerce got in the way. I blame Bill Clinton. It's not really his fault, but he's responsible for two things which significantly impacted how national reporting is done. First & foremost, with the Communications Act of 1996 (which also GAVE the satellite airwaves  - valued then @ $700BB, so probably $2TT now - to corporate America), he gutted the community-service obligations of media companies, which took the gloves off news as an obligatory loss-leader (in the name of truth) for any who would control communication for any region of our country. Without accountability, the fourth estate became a whorehouse, scrambling for readership & viewership in any possible way.

Then Clinton (and the "right wing conspiracy") gave us a scandal which allowed OJ-trial-style journalism to be practiced on a national, political scale. With Newt Gingrich engineering the legitimization of fringe politics, yellow monarch Rupert Murdoch looking to scoop up as much of the world press as he could get his hands on (no longer prevented in USA because of CA'96) and the psycho-sexual savvy of Roger Ailes's politics of rage, TruthiWorld™ was conceived to kill its master.

The world barked but did not bite and commerce was the reason for that as well. EVERY media entity wanted its share of the pie. Except for the weird rare breed of reporter who's in it for the action and would do it for free, everyone with a keyboard or microphone got stars and/or $$signs in their eyes. With regulation of the airwaves no longer a factor, there was no organ in place to keep the internet from going anywhere it wanted, so it did. With media companies consolidating and necessarily losing the flexibility necessary to harness/integrate new technologies, they concentrated on lowering the cost and heightening the revenue of news. "Opinion" surpassed reportage in both categories, and so quickly subsumed and largely destroyed it. And the last bastion, print journalism, fell victim to declining revenues which made in-depth local journalism impossible and anachronized ombudsmanship.

And now it's all up for grabs and little to be believed. Just like our President, the "Guardians" are candidates for Personage of the Year only for all the wrong reasons.