Jeff Bezos is leading the pack on who will be named Media Person of the Year.
Voting begins on Monday for the annual competition. IWantMedia.com, which has run the poll for 11 years, says the winner should be the most memorable figure — good or bad — in the media industry. (Last year’s winner was BuzzFeed boy wonder Jonah Peretti.) Amazon chief Bezos stunned the old media world this year with his $250 million purchase of the Washington Post. No one knows what he plans to do, but other publishers hope it’s something smart, so they can copy it.
The other 2013 candidates include: Katie Couric, who abandoned TV news to become “global news anchor” of Yahoo; Nikki Finke, who lasted longer than anyone expected before publicly brawling with boss Jay Penske and exiting the Deadline Hollywood web site; Reed Hastings, who saw his Netflix streaming-video service win its first Emmy award; Shane Smith, the CEO of Brooklyn-based Vice Media who dispatched Dennis Rodman to North Korea; and Anna Wintour, who expanded her power as Conde Nast’s new artistic director.