By Michelle Nichols

Sat Dec 16, 2006

NEW YORK (Reuters) – You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.

"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," the magazine's Lev Grossman wrote.

The magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue, released on Monday, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said in a statement.

You beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Time has been naming its person of the year since 1927 and the tradition has become the source of speculation every year, as well as controversy over unpopular choices such as Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

The aim is to pick "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse."

Grossman said the creators and consumers of user-generated Internet sites showed a community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes," said Grossman, Time's technology writer and book critic.

"The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web," he said. "It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter."

MySpace – bought by media giant News Corp. last year for $580 million – has more than 130 million users around the world and adds around 300,000 members a day, while YouTube – bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. last month for $1.65 billion – gets about 100 million daily views.

"These blogs and videos bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media," Stengel said.

"Journalists once had the exclusive province of taking people to places they'd never been. But now a mother in Baghdad with a videophone can let you see a roadside bombing or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist rant by a famous comedian," he said.

Time's 2005 Person of the Year was the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, his wife Melinda, and Irish rocker Bono for being Good Samaritans, while the 2004 choice was President Bush. In 2003 "The American Soldier" graced the cover in a year when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

SAMPLE ANALYSIS

The headline of the given article is Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is you that was written on Dec 16, 2006 by Michelle Nichols from Reuters and published on the official web-page of this world-famous agency.

The topic of the given article is naming the person of the year that is annually done by the Times magazine. The main idea of the article is that this year YOU have been named the person of the year by the Times magazine.

The article deals with an astonishing fact that this year the person of the year is YOU. The article begins with a short description of the achievements that became made naming you the person of the year 2006 possible. According to the author of this article who cites the Time’s journalist Lev Grossman YOU were named a person of the year For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game. The author points out that YOU beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao and other world-famous public figures. The author also underlines the fact that the magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue for reflecting the face of the person of the year – that is YOU.

Then the author goes on to the description of the Time’s traditional ceremony stating that the Time has been naming its person of the year since 1927 and the tradition has become the source of speculation every year, as well as controversy over unpopular choices such as Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. It must be emphasized that the aim of this ceremony is to pick "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse." It should be noted that the tool that made this nomination possible is the World Wide Web. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.

To sum up the author emphasizes the extraordinary popularity of the video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace that citing Editor Richard Stengel bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media.

The final paragraph of the article states some facts of Time’s previous nominations including the information that Time's 2005 Person of the Year was the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, his wife Melinda, and Irish rocker Bono for being Good Samaritans, while the 2004 choice was President Bush. In 2003 "The American Soldier" graced the cover in a year when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

To my mind the article is rather interesting as far as it deals with a topic that attracts attention of the general audience, of all the readers who are more or less interested in what is going on in the modern world. The article is up-to-date since it was published a couple of days after the Time’s issue release.

Nevertheless the article lacks description of a unique technical feature of the Time’s issue – a mirror on the front page of the magazine. The author gives only a disappointingly short mentioning that the magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue, avoiding the description of its publishing production and explanation of the fact how such a brilliant marketing trick could be kept in secret for a long period of time taking into account high media alert on the eve of the day of announcing Person of the Year title by the Time that usually attracts attention of a vast majority of media across the world.

The criteria for news selection that are of key importance for the given article are prominence as far as Time’s Person of the Year nomination is one of the most famous in the world, timeliness due to the fact that this article was published soon after the Time’s issue release, human interest that is caused by the nature of the ceremony itself (as far as everybody is interested in the most popular person of the year) and oddity that originates from the unprecedented decision of the Time magazine for naming YOU a person of the year.

From my point of view the given article is a perfect example of soft news story that does not contain any urgent information typical for hard news stories. It is not based on conflict and does not state any possible consequences for the readers. It is based primarily on oddity and human interest that let us consider it to be a soft news item.

As it has already been stated before the given article deals with a topic that attracts attention of the general audience, of all the readers who are more or less interested in what is going on in the modern world. Thus, the article does not have any specific target audience.

Note:

Expressions in italics are taken from the Plan for Analyzing and Rendering Newspaper Articles.

Expression in bold are taken from the text with literally no changes.

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