Is Time's Person of the Year Cover Propaganda?

WASHINGTON -- One of the favorite new charges mounted by amateur media critics is that journalists have adopted the "frame" advanced by a politician’s handlers in their coverage. When it comes to Barack Obama, magazines are falling for his tinted lens and posterization technique, as well.

There is little surprise that Time decided to name Obama its "Person of the Year," and the magazine takes its usual pains to make the world-historical case for its choice. But the image the magazine chose for its cover strives for little such distance: Time is decorated, quite literally, with an Obama campaign poster. →