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As blatant as it gets Who would you pick as your ‘Newsmaker of the Year’? Who do you believe has had the most significant impact in 2002? It is a tough one, isn’t it. So many candidates, some for good reasons, some for bad reasons.
However, on the assumption that you are at all interested in this kind of thing, then you might care to toddle along to the BBC Website where they have very helpfully published a shortlist of suitable nominees for you to consider:
- Jimmy Carter
- Bill Clinton
- Louis Farrakhan
- Alan Greenspan
- Jeremy Hardy
- Prince Harry
- Ali Hewson
- Henry Kissinger
- Michael Moore
- Christopher Reeve
- Clare Short
Now I do not wish to appear overly judgemental or anything, and I am always wary about jumping to conclusions, and I realise that you must not go around accusing people of all sorts of things for no reason or putting two and two together and coming up with five, but I honestly do think that the BBC have an ever-so-slight left-wing bias.
Or do you think I’m being too hasty?
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The left-wing bias is almost laughable.
They are just taking the piss.
I voted for Prince Harry but I now regret not jumping on the Michael Moore bandwagon.
Yes, it’s a ridiculous list!
However, I did my part. After not ticking any candidate listed, I clicked on the “vote”. (Cookie required). It evidently recorded the so-called vote.
I feel I’ve done my duty for democracy!
I voted for Alan Greenspan, Ian Fleming and Ozzie Osborne.
I love the way the Beeb refers to anti-semitic bigot Tom Paulin. It skates over his call for Jewish settlers to be shot. Unbelievable. They treat him as some eccentric old geezer who has gotten a rough deal in the U.S.
[Yawn]
When is their licensing fee getting revoked? Or is that dead in the water?
It might be a good idea to hoist them with their own petard. Just how bad is the BBC going to look if Louis Farrakhan wins their poll? I say we flood their site and vote Farrakhan en masse.
BBC puts in Americans which I suspect 95% of the UK public will have never even heard of, let alone know what they stand for!
Louis Farrakhan and Michael Moore are extremely obscure people on this side of the Atlantic.
To be honest, I have never heard of Ali Hewson or Jeremy Hardy.
7 of the 10 (at least, since I, too, have no idea who Ali Hewson is) are American. How very multicultural of the BBC. Here’s to hoping that this little poll really does tell us more about the BBC than the British (but, then again, I haven’t looked at the results yet.) If Michael Moore wins, will you Brits please KEEP him?
I’m going with a tie here: Jimmy ‘Negotiated Settlement’ Carter and Bill Clinton. Each made a significant contribution to the fine evil axis mess we’re in now. Thanks guys.
OMG. Moore is winning.
None of these people had a terrifically great influence on the news of 2002. My list might include people like George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Ariel Sharon, Yassar Arafat, Kim Dae-jung, Hugo Chavez, Brazil’s president-elect Lula, Mugabe, the new prime minister of China, Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair, etc, etc. This would all be before any of these people. This is just sad.
What’s going on at the Beeb? If they’re trying to be PC, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN NOMINEES (not a dig at Clare Short)?
By any objective criterion, Dubya has to be the newsmaker of the year, ghastly though he may well be. He’s changing the geopolitical landscape — and pretty soon the physical one, judging from the nucular threats.
As to M Moore, today a colleague at the paper proudly showed me what he was reading: Stupid White Men, natch. I fear Mikey is going to be a bestseller here in SA. That title is great marketing.
PS: how about Samizdata running a Blogmaker of the Year. Might be interesting, provocative even.
Every time I see the cover of that book, with the “Stupid White Men” title written over that silly picture of Michael Moore, I can not help but grin to myself at the aptness of it.
Seems pretty anglophone-biased, too.
Trying to pick one person is a little like asking which split-second of a car crash was the most horrifying. How do you separate Bush from Ben Laden as an isolated phenomenon?
These kind of lists (Man of the Year, Artist of the Century, Sexiest Strumpet on the Face of the Planet, etc.) seem to be shallow populism, geared to grab people’s interest and feedback without really engaging in issues.
Kind of a frothy crème anglaise on your pudding. Nice for a laignappe, but it hardly provides the real substance of a…
Oh the heck with it! I pick Homer Simpson!
Kissinger didn’t make any news this year until about a week or so ago. Robin Page made more news than that.
I vote for Saddam and OBL.
Funny, how 2 former persidents(both democrats) are included, but the current one is not.
Especially suprising since pretty much the biggest story on earth is the war on terror…
Anyone care to explain why Bush isn’t on the list?
And before you start accusing me of anglo-centrism, remember that the WOT is world-spanning, has claimed a signifigant number of combatants, and is affecting the policies and governments of nearly every nation on earth, from the campaign strategy of Schroeder to the predator-executions in Qatar, to Pakistan’s renewed struggle (or not, dependin on view) with its militants and its own security service.
But who is Ali Hewson?
Found: Ali Hewson. She is the wife of U2 singer Bono and recently led a protest group that wants to close sellafield. There’s a BBC story (natch) at news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/ 2000/newsmakers/1966198.stm
I’ve never seen her name in any news I read, and I cover a lot of ground.
…only thing worse than rock star prostesting for fad-of-the-day is rock star’s wife protesting for fad-of-the-day.
I wonder if Bono’s cousin will get nominated next year or something.
Ah, the BBC… worth every penny of the licence fee I am dodging.
HA-HA.
David,
Here’s the link for Yahoo’s nominees for most influential person in 2002. As biased as BBC’s list is, Yahoo’s list makes the BBC look downright cerebreal (sp?).
http://promotions.yahoo.com/personoftheyear2002
Didn’t you Brits have Di in front of Shakespeare on the last Most Important British Person ever poll? Or maybe it was right next to…
At least Yahoo! managed to get the President on its list. But Howard Stern? Has he actually done anything lately?