Time magazine names Obama “Person of the Year”

 Mr. Obama is not the first U.S. President to be chosen by TIME magazine as “Person of the Year.”

U.S. President, Barack Obama, has been named TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012.

Mr. Obama’s recognition was announced on Wednesday by TIME editor, Rick Stengel.

Mr. Obama emerged ahead of other finalists which included former U.S. President, Bill Clinton and wife, Hilary, who is the Secretary of State; Pakistani teenage girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girl’s education; and the Egyptian President, Mohammed Mursi.

Apple chief executive, Tim Cook; and physicist, Fabiola Gianotti; were also shortlisted for the award.

TIME said the United States is in the midst of huge cultural and demographic changes and Mr. Obama is “both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America.”

The magazine noted that Mr. Obama was the first president since Franklin Roosevelt to win more than 50 percent of the vote in two straight elections and the first in 70 years to be re-elected despite an unemployment rate above 7.5 percent.

“He’s basically the beneficiary and the author of a kind new America – a new demographic, a new cultural America that he is now the symbol of,” Mr. Stengel said on U.S. channel, NBC.

“In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union.”

The honor was the second time Mr. Obama would be so named having received the honor in 2008 when he was the President-elect. Mr. Obama also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

Other previous winners of the Time award include Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and former American President, George W. Bush.