笔者作为一名编辑曾经参与了《时代》周刊（Time Magazine）“年度人物”的评选（我曾编辑过1996年“年度人物”何大一的封面报道，并至少撰写过一篇《史蒂夫·乔布斯落选》），因此，我清楚《时代》周刊没办法不选巴拉克·奥巴马作为2012年度人物。因为他赢得了总统大选，2012年全年的大部分时间都占据着媒体的显要位置。

    而且，周二那天得知苹果公司（Apple）新任首席执行官也进入了《时代》周刊编辑们拟定的八位最终候选人名单时，我也不是特别惊讶。同时入选的还有雅虎（Yahoo）首席执行官玛丽莎·梅耶尔、埃及总统穆罕默德·穆尔西、欧洲核子研究组织的法比奥拉•吉阿诺蒂（因希格斯玻色子闻名）以及另外4位候选人。因为地区性、性别多样性以及制造轰动效应的需要会在很大程度上影响编辑筛选过程。

    但我真的没想到蒂姆·库克能够跻身《时代》周刊“年度人物”前五。因为他性格沉闷，除了苹果观察家外，几乎没什么人知道他。

    但他确实榜上有名，而且杂志还附了一篇列夫·格罗斯曼写的2,500字的文章。文章开篇写道：

    “蒂姆·库克与他所有前任相比有一个很大的不同，他是苹果历史上首位兵不血刃就成功上位的首席执行官。”

    译者：项航

    Having participated as a Time Magazine editor in my share of Person of the Year selections (I edited the David Ho cover and wrote at least one Steve Jobs "also ran" item), I knew how hard it was going to be for the magazine not to make Barack Obama -- winner of the Presidential election that dominated the news for most of the year -- Time's 2012 POY.

    And I wasn't entirely surprised to learn Tuesday that the editors had put Apple's (AAPL) new CEO on its short list of eight finalists -- along with Yahoo's (YHOO) Marissa Mayer, Egypt's Mohamed Morsi, CERN's Fabiola Gianotti (of Higgs Boson fame) and four others. Variety of region, gender and the surprise factor weigh heavily in the editorial winnowing process.

    But I didn't expect Tim Cook -- a bland fellow largely unknown outside the circle of Apple (AAPL) watchers -- to make it into the magazine as one of four runners up.

    Yet there he is, accompanied by a 2,500-word Lev Grossman essay that begins:

    "Tim Cook has the decidedly nontrivial distinction of being the first CEO of Apple since the very first to come to power without blood on his hands."