WHY DID TIME PASS OVER SNOWDEN FOR MAN OF THE YEAR?

Media critics generally joined in condemning Time magazine’s decision to name Pope Francis Person of the Year over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. On corporate sibling CNN, Reliable Sources‘ new host Brian Stelter remarked that the magazine probably figured that Snowden would be “too polarizing” a choice. Mediaite.com columnist Joe Concha agreed, saying, “Sometimes you can’t give it to the controversial guy because in 1979, when they gave it to Ayatollah Khomeini, boy, that was a problem, because they experienced some real negativity there, so they’ve shied away from it.” But Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who first revealed some of the information in the Snowden papers, said, “It’s a meaningless award from a meaningless magazine, designed to achieve the impossible: to make Time relevant and interesting for a few fleeting moments.” In an email to TalkingPointsMemo.com, Greenwald added, “If it were a serious magazine with minimally brave editors, then of course Snowden would have been chosen.”