North Korea media report Kim Jong Un voted Time ‘man of 2012’
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un salutes as he watches a military parade to mark 100 years since the birth of the country’s founder and his grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012.
Millions of North Koreans believe their supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, is Time’s “man of 2012,” the New York Daily News reported.
Except he is not.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency announced Kim’s award on Wednesday morning, before the real Time “Person of the Year” – US President Barack Obama – was revealed, the Atlantic Wire reported.
“The US magazine The Time selected the dear respected Kim Jong Un as 'man of 2012.'
“The magazine has selected and published "man of the year" every year from 1927. This year, it conducted on-line voting among subscribers including politicians, businessmen, artistes, sportspersons and announcers for the man of this year.
“More than 5.6 million people, the greatest number, voted for Kim Jong Un.”
The report is not totally incorrect.
Kim did win the magazine’s online reader poll last week, though the result was heavily manipulated by online forums such as 4Chan, Time said.
Obama, however, took the top honor for the second time from Time’s editors.
Kim wasn’t even on the shortlist, though it is unlikely that this piece of information will ever see the light of day in a KCNA report.
More from GlobalPost: South Korean, Chinese papers fall for The Onion's Kim Jong Un spoof
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