Propaganda of the year

You're upset with America's choice. We get it. Duly noted.

Obama picked by the media as MotY!?!?? There is a shocker! Why they ought to just pick him for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 while they are at it. (Or will the infatuation fade by then?).

Wait. How can this be? The media in bed with a Democrat? I'm shocked.

Really.

who else is supposed to be the person of the year? you might not like obama but you cant argue with his impact.

As an artist, I approve of this cover.

Don't you just wish your rag had something as pertinent to publish.

Sooo ... you don't like him I take it?

Get over it! If this is the best you can muster regarding political commentary, turn to sports handicapping!

wah wah wah

Newsflash: Election's over.

Geez, enough already - can we let the guy get to work and quit idolizing him at every turn. BTW, when are the Nike Air Obama's coming out?

Wow. You are a real douche. I'm critizing you instead of your ideas becasue these aren't your ideas -- this is the same tired garbage I got so sick of duing the campaign. What typical pointless partisan whining. I am embarassed for your editors who demand so little from thier column inches.

He won the election already scooter -- go home and cry over your "Drill baby, drill!" wife-beater.

Why is Sasha Issenberg griping about the cover if it helps to provide desperately-needed attention and revenue for Time Magazine (which is, of course, the bottom line In All Things)? Cultural events sell, and Obama is a cultural event. She is saying nothing new nor profound in this piece. Get back to work, stop complaining, write something worthwhile, while you still have employment as a journalist.

So America (and the world) has a brief moment of happiness over its new leader, but that can't be celebrated. That's propaganda? There are many more substantial issues to evaluate and critisize with regards to our governement and our Press. This post is just pissy.

Oh, boo freakin' hoo. So Obama is getting positive media coverage. Deal with it. There'll be plenty of opportunities to criticize him once he actually starts governing.

Time magazine has zero journalistic integrity in my books. If you look at the past year, it has been jam packed with Obama propaganda. The "Person of the Year" selection was made before the year had even passed. The iconic pictures of Obama plastered all over their pages remind me of the communist propaganda of yore. If it takes iconic images to sell their rag, maybe they should make a Che Guevara, Stalin or Chairman Mao "commemorative" issue. Once again, mainstream media is sold to the highest bidder.

It is a campaign poster in the form of old eastern block nations and current mid-east leader exaltation. The first time I saw this image during the campaign, I was wondering who the campaign manager was... Someone who ends their sentences in "comrade"?
I predict that during the next campaign, you will see giant posters of this type draped from the tops of skyscrapers. A bronze statue will be erected (while he is still in office) - probably on a horse with his glasses on.
Most presidents don't get this kind of "worship" from their subjects until they are dead and the historians can re-write the truth about their histories.
The most shocking thing is that this man has virtually NO history of doing anything legit in the political world, yet he has been proclaimed as a type of "messiah" by some of his followers. Idols have that affect on people.

With the economy in free-fall, the planetary thermostat pegged out on "hot," wars, famines, and emerging diseases around the world - is this really all you have to think about? No wonder both the right and left find common ground in despising the irrelevant babblings of so much of the traditional media.

Eyes on the prize and off the navel, please... Sometimes poster art is just poster art.

Oh come on.... the image *is* of Obama after all. It would have been less propagandistic if they had just put the same old boring headshot on the cover?
I recently came across the Time magazine when then president-elect George W. Bush was on the cover.... picking the president-elect as person of the year is fairly standard as far as Time goes. I guess I can appreciate that technically it's "campaign material" but the image itself hardly says much about Obama's political agenda, except for maybe that he appeals to an audience that is interested in graphic design. And to argue that the media should be scrutinizing the image (literal and figurative) that politicians present to them more thoroughly is not really a novel idea. The Time cover is small potatoes when compared with other examples on both sides of the political spectrum.

In summary, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

I wonder if Sasha regrets voting for Obama.

LOL. Sour grapes.

Wah.

Well, I guess if your newspaper endorses the loser in a presidential election you aren't going to show a whole lotta love for the winner. Sour grapes, however, are never becoming, and regarding a media competitor to boot.

Give me a break. This is just a rediculous criticism. I can see how a cover like this might have been innappropriate DURING the campaign, but now that it's over it's not like TIME is doing anything inappropriate with a cover like this.

In fact, I think it's completely appropriate that this cover celebrating Obama as Person of the Year would evoke his election campaign. Considering that Obama has yet to assume the reigns of power, his selection as Person of the Year is based solely on the accomplishmet of his remarkable campaign itself. Obama broke political ground in part by appealing to youth, being tapped in to contemporary culture in ways that typical washington politicians have not. Through his focus on issues relevant to younger people, his use of the internet and social networking tools, his inspiration of artists like will.i.am and Shepard Fairey, Obama fashioned himself into a political juggernaut that has shaken up the political world.

What more appropriate a way to celebrate that accomplishment in a magazine cover could there be then, than through the work of one of the young artists who was both inspired by Obama and contributed to that accomplishment.

Wow, someone is really searching for a reason to have an issue with this choice.

"Fairey's "great populist image” of Obama, which typically appeared over the word "Hope," showed the candidate, lips pursed, gazing pensively to his left."....

Look again - the image shows Obama gazing to HIS right NOT left.....hopefully a left or right gaze in not considered some sort of political statement. He is gazing over his right shoulder.

What's really bothering you Sasha? :)

Just another Heaping - Helping of Evidence as to why we have our first MEDIA INCUCED PRESIDENT.

Evidence that falls right in line with the following examples:

-Barbara WaWa & Whoopee Goldie-Wannabee on the “Bitch View” and the way they treated McCain (not to mention Joy Baying Hound).

-Ellen Degenerant and the way she treated McCain.

-Keith GoOfy Olbermann & his Constant Whinings.

-Skunk Man’ Jay Leno and ‘Snag Headed’ David Letterman continuous jokes about McCain and few about Obom, along with the other late night goofs.

-The Saturday Night Live Crap-Crowd & Tina Feign Non-Stop Indoctrinations (of young people especially).

-CNN and the rest of the liberal media ‘fawning’ over Obama in such blatant fashion.

-Opel Winnifred promoting Obama with a Non-Stop Bias.

-‘Big-Nose’ Bill Mahr and his mindless ramblings.

- Obama changed his opinion on Iran and took a Harder line, saying he would not allow Iran to develop a Nuclear Weapon (the media really didn’t report this change – they let it slide). When McCain said ‘the same’ he was called a warmonger.

- Obama slowly & subtlely changed his stance, during the campaign, on meeting with Iran’s, ‘supposed’ President. The media never really called him on it.

- Obama now, apparently, has seen the light on pulling the troops out too soon (since the Surge Worked – News-Flash !!) & the Media is looking the other way on this also, or was Obum just telling the Childlike Liberals what they wanted to hear, just to get elected (that Anti-War speech in Chicago also comes to mind here).

- After the election, She–Wolf Obama tried to Brag that she & Barrack had made their way in this world with ‘hard work’ & Keeping Their Word………… OH YEAH, well how about the ‘Public Campaign Financing Pledge.’

ETC., ETC., ETC.

Also, ‘we now’ see what type of Political Garbage comes out of Chicago. Where was all the Late Night Jokes & Media Coverage of that. Chicago Corruption is not new, Reference: the Daley Machine in the 50’s & 60’s, and it is only somewhat better now.

I could fill this page up with Example after Example.

---- This was a Stolen Election that was rigged as soon as the Media could Indoctrinate enough Feeble Minds (especially Young, First-Time Voters who are SO Prone to Following FADS !!!)).

MEDIA INDUCED PRESIDENT
MEDIA INDUCED PRESIDENT
MEDIA INDUCED PRESIDENT

So now we have our first Media Induced Pres………Or is it just the BIGGEST DOSE of AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EVER….
------------------

----So, in the final analysis, I guess we now know who the 'REAL' BIGOTED, Lying "HATE-MONGERS" Are !!!

If THIS is what is called "PROPAGANDA" today, what in the world do they call the blizzard of Right-Wing Crap we have had forced down our throats for the last eight years?
"Tax cuts will bring jobs and prosperity" (Guess that one should be dead for decades). "Iraq is holding weapons of mass destruction and the USA must invade to save the world from a 'bad guy'" (Lies too numerous to list here). "Get the government off the backs of corporations." "Deregulation and the 'free market' will bring unlimited prosperity" ("Forever?"). "Fox News -Fair and Balanced"! And on, and on, and on......
To replace propaganda with truth, the system of free enterprise which actually brought prosperity to these great United States was one rigidly regulated from the great depression of the 1930's until the 1980's. The empirical facts show that 'free enterprise' NEEDS government regulation to prevent the excesses of 'free enterprise' which will, because of the nature of MAN, cause economic 'panics', depressions and recessions on a regular basis if not controlled by government regulation. Not all corporations are bad, not all politicians are good but a balance of power between them is necessary for an economically well-functioning American Society! History proves it! Government is not the enemy of the people unless it is used against the people and government regulation of industry for the benefit of the people is desired and necessary!

Lincoln said it best...."Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

A) Who could see Russia from their house?
B) Who won their election by having their opponents removed from the ballot?
If you answered Sarah Palin to 'A', you're wrong. It was Tina Fey on SNL.
If you answered Barack Obama to 'B' you're right!
There is no bias in the media, none at all.

Uh.... huh? Maybe you could re-phrase your complaint for us hoi polloi? "Abdicated a journalistic opportunity"? Dude i just think it's a good picture. Except i want to know what's the significance of the dollar sign by his neck.

"Not only has Time abdicated a journalistic opportunity ..."

This is news?

Where have all the journalists gone? What we have today is 'the media' which long ago sold it's journalistic soul in the name of higher ratings, ad revenue and political correctness.

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
- Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

This is an insult to Obama. Bush has been on the cover I think twice. With that in mind Paulson should have been selected to keep the list of incompetents untarnished.

And yet again - a post I left soon after this blog went up never gets published - perhaps because I compared this poster picture to those that are reminiscent of the Stalin and Lenin posters back in their day and left links - the URL was RELEVANT, Boston Globe! Talk about censorship - the Globe is ALL over it when it comes to anything negative about their media choice for President, aren't you?

Just go to Google Images and put in Stalin posters or Lenin posters and you'll see what I mean.

I canceled my subscription to the Seattle Times about 15 years ago when I got tired of funding the Propaganda Agency of the Washington State Democrat Party.

By the way, BHO is a made man. Made by the Illinois/Chicago Democrat machine. It is inconceivable that BHO has not been tainted by Illinois/Chicago political corruption. If you come from Chicago, you need to PROVE that you are not corrupt. But I guess no one cares as long as they get their share of the goody pie being served by the socialists in Washington.

All Americans will be poorer because you elected a socialist.

THANK YOU!!!! FINALLY an article that speaks the truth!! :)

god bless!

Talk is cheap. Let's wait and see what Obama does then give him man of the year. Hope is great, but comon', we all need the tangible things. I'm sure those Chrysler folks who will be out of work and collecting less than usual pay until after Jan 19 are so filled with hope right now that it makes them giddy. Please.

Talk is cheap. Our government needs to get to work.

I have no problem with Obama being named Time's POY. After all, he did make history this year. However this campaign poster (and now the Time cover) annoys me. It looks like a propaganda poster for a communist dictator from a Central American country in the 80s. As a nation, we are above that.

Wow. Until you pointed it out, I hadn't seen this as propaganda, but now... wow. Yeah, a private corporation paying an artist to paint a portrait in a distinctive style is a clear sign of the downfall of the United States. I mean, it's only a small hop from that to something truly outrageous, like the President wearing a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier with a giant "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign hanging in the background in an attempt to declare an end to a war that then rages on long past the time when the cameras stop rolling...

Thank you for saying what most Americans already know, Time, CNN, and other so-called "mainstream" outlets have been engaged in propoganda for Obama for a LONG time now. As a former reporter, it frustrates me to see it, and as a student of history, it turns my stomach.

What can be more insidious than widespread political propoganda DISGUISED AS NEWS? It is brainwashing on a massive scale, and undermines the so-called fourth pillar of government. (The Discipline Formerly Known as Journalism).

For all you Obama supporters who don't care... you should. When reporters stop asking their leaders TOUGH questions, when they start mimicking his talking points verbatim without analysis, when THEY START COVERING UP FOR HIS DUBIOUS TIES instead of investigating them... you will have a huge national disaster. JUST ASK THE MINIONS WHO WERE SCREAMING HITLER'S NAME WITH LOVE AND ADORATION DURING HIS RISE TO POWER.

I don't remember anyone complaining when Rudy was on the cover as person of the year standing over NYC with the caption, "tower of strength"

Time can choose whatever cover they want, GET OVER IT. When you own your own magazine, then you can use a polaroid of Obama, rather than a nice artistic image. Even if the image was chosen to sell more magazines, isn't that the whole point? And when you DO own your own magazine, please make sure your main reason of operating isn't to sell any copies. Please sell as little as you can, bravo.

You can't please everyone, especially US reporters. Someone will have something negative to say regardless of who is on the cover.

Acdepting the notion of the media in bed with Democrats as fact (which it is), this may be just as motivated by Time's attempt to sell magazines. I'm no fan of Obama, but I have to credit them for actually thinking with their wallets here: recognizing the public's unconditional love of Obama, the value of the MOTY brand, and the fact that magazines need to put anything on the cover that will sell copies in a tough media climate

It's the iconic image of the whole campaign. They'd be foolish NOT to use it for the cover. It's instantly recognizable, and will drive newsstand sales. That's what a cover is for, which is why they chose this striking image. You're way off base with your criticism - magazines have historically used campain imagery in their artwork.

Reminds me of the famous "Guerrillero Heroico" photo of Che Guevara.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre !

He is in good company I suppose, Stalin, Hitler, Putin and Obama.

The cover has a great aesthetic value. I'm glad they they chose Shepard Fairey to make it.