time mag, is, and always has been, a r/w rag.
At its most innocuous, it "just" supports the status quo. The status quo of "America" as the exceptional country with a manifest destiny.
It was founded by henry luce. he also founded life mag. and fortune and sports illustrated. he was a proponent of "American" exceptionalism. he also, "used Time to support right-wing dictatorships in the name of fighting communism." (See his wiki page which is somewhat accurate.)
Do you honestly think that hitler as "man of the year" was a mistake? The fascists hated "communism." Which side do you think old henry, who was "editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964" and an "influential member of the Republican Party" took in any editorial decisions?
Please learn about the sources quoted and noted here. The number of reliable sources available to us is 0. Any source, no matter how much you may agree with their "reporting," has an agenda. Informing "the masses" accurately and without prejudice is at the bottom of their priorities.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...for me to even deflect, and that I have not denied the existence of such bigotry, I find your post completely without merit.
But at least you're using more caution with that football, I hope. 
Hitler, the embodiment of fascism, was PotY once. Stalin, the embodiment of what Americans perceived as Communism, was PotY twice.
Hitler made big news over the Sudetenland and Austria. Stalin made big news over the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and Stalingrad. PotY isn't an endorsement, it's an acknowledgment of a person's impact on the news. Western-centric, certainly.
Again, I don't disagree with your assessment of Time as a right wing magazine, but painting PotY as an editorial conspiracy to propagandize the public just doesn't hold up with the argument you're making. 
Last edited Thu Dec 12, 2013, 12:17 AM - Edit history (1)
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/hitler/sources/30s/391time/391timemanyear.htmThe man most responsible for this world tragedy is a moody, brooding, unprepossessing, 49-year-old Austrian-born ascetic with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. The son of an Austrian petty customs official, Adolf Hitler was raised as a spoiled child by a doting mother. Consistently failing to pass even the most elementary studies, he grew up a half-educated young man, untrained for any trade or profession, seemingly doomed to failure. Brilliant, charming, cosmopolitan Vienna he learned to loathe for what he called its Semitism; more to his liking was homogeneous Munich, his real home after 1912. To this man of no trade and few interests the Great War was a welcome event which gave him some purpose in life.
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The situation which gave rise to this demagogic, ignorant, desperate movement was inherent in the German Republic's birth and in the craving of large sections of the politically immature German people for strong, masterful leadership.
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What Adolf Hitler & Co. did to the German people in that time left civilized men and women aghast. Civil rights and liberties have disappeared. Opposition to the Nazi regime has become tantamount to suicide or worse. Free speech and free assembly are anachronisms. The reputations of the once-vaunted German centres of learning have vanished. Education has been reduced to a National Socialist catechism.
Stalin's actions with M-R were labeled "positive", "inspiring", and "world-shattering."
http://www.swcs.us/~jennie.joseph/FOV1-000365DC/S087EF766-087F1B61.7/Stalin.pdf
So look, I know what you're saying about Time being a right wing mag, and I know they have a history of looking down on progressive ideas, but Hitler getting an utterly scathing review and Stalin getting praised is pretty much the opposite of what you were arguing.
If you're referring to Chiang Kai-Shek, then absolutely, you're right, and I wouldn't have even said anything if you'd used that example.
And from Glen Greenwald. Why be so distraught over a "r/w rags'" choice for a meaningless Person of the Year award?
Its hard to understand so many threads over such a trivial subject, if indeed all those posters truly consider it to be trivial. Aren't there far more pressing issues to rant about, issues that really affect peoples' lives? Like extended unemployment benefits ending or the next round of sequester slashes to social programs? Does Time still even publish a print edition anymore? Does anyone actually pay money to buy it?
Instead there's seemingly a need for endless self-assurance that it really is unimportant and no one who really matters cares even the tiniest bit who Time magazine picks.
Peoples' priorities (and motives) are often inexplicable to me.
