Magazine Compares 'Persons Of The Year' To 9/11 Firefighters

POSTED: 9:59 a.m. EST December 22, 2002 NEW YORK -- Three whistleblowers have been chosen Time magazine's Persons of the Year. Special agent Coleen Rowley. lead councel for FBI's Minneapolis office

Time's managing editor says Coleen Rowley(pictured, left), Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins (pictured, below right) embody a critical struggle facing the country -- how to restore trust in disgraced institutions.

In Jim Kelly's words, "It's their modesty that's so becoming."

Rowley wrote a scathing memo on FBI intelligence failures. Cooper alerted the board of WorldCom to almost $4 billion in accounting irregularities, and Watkins warned Enron Enron Executive Sherron Watkinschairman Kenneth Lay in August 2001 that improper accounting could cause the company's collapse.

Time's cover story on the three women compares them to Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters as heroes chosen by circumstance.

Most of the magazine's Persons of the Year have been well-established public figures.

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2002