Media person of the year for 2006 is Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert, the host of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, is the 2006 Media Person of the Year, according to the annual online poll held by I Want Media.

The popularity of Colbert's spot-on, satirical cable-news pundit character already led him to be honored as of one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2006. The Comedy Central star sent shock waves through the news media early in the year when he keynoted the White House Correspondents' Association dinner and skewered President Bush to his face: "I believe in this president. Guys like us ... know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Colbert's routine "unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping," wrote Michael Scherer of Salon.com. A clip of Colbert's speech instantly became a viral video hit on the Web. New York Times columnist Frank Rich later described Colbert's performance as the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.

I loved that performance at the White House Correspondents dinner! It may go down in history as perhaps the gutsiest performance in the history of satire.

Colbert, Stewart, and Olbermann are definitely changing the way we get our news, and it can really only make it better.