The Paper Trail

Newsmaker of the Year 2009

January 4, 2010 RSS Feed Print

It's a simple concept: Pick the biggest name in the news in 2009. Here are your choices:

Who was big in the news this year?

Barack Obama. Well, he was inaugurated as president in January, becoming the first African-American leader of the United States, and college students were a big reason he got there. He pushed a landmark economic recovery package through Congress. Oh, and he started anew the great healthcare reform debate. Pretty big year. Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams. OK, OK, we know it's not Newsmakers of the Year, but these two guys have spearheaded the biggest social media movement since Facebook. Twitter is everywhere now: campuses, businesses, even the news. It's hard to ignore that kind of explosion of popularity. Tiger Woods. For all the wrong reasons, the greatest golfer of our generation and onetime Stanford standout took over the airwaves at the end of 2009. Bernie Madoff. The billion-dollar Ponzi schemer cost colleges and countless other organizations millions upon millions of dollars. As if the economic climate could've gotten any worse, right? View Results