Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s Cover Battle. Today we’re featuring Vogue versus The Atlantic. Vogue went with a fantastic photograph of the First Lady, Michelle Obama. We have nothing bad to say about this because there is nothing bad to say about Mrs. Obama. Hey girl! Sorry. Ahem. Moving on.

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Michelle Obama is featured on the cover of the May Ebony, and of course she looks fabulous. Inside the issue, The Huffington Post reports that the First Lady talks to Amy DuBois, Ebony’s Editor-in-Chief, about how she maintains a level head with her crazy life.

Also, since May 13 is Mother’s Day (mark your calendar now!), Mrs. Obama even discusses the ways the family celebrates the holiday and how important her mother is to her. “Anytime I need to go and plop on her couch and just talk, she’s always there,” she told Ebony.

The May issue of Ebony hits newsstands April 17.

In her new book Commander in Chic, Essence editor-at-large Mikki Taylor doles out fashion and beauty tips for the everyday woman based on examples from Michelle Obama.

“I love her clear cut assurance, the way she owns her style from within,” she explained in our Media Beat interview.

And one thing FLOTUS has done, according to Taylor, is inject a much needed sophistication into America’s dress code. Casual Fridays? No, thank you, she says.

“I think that we’re a little too relaxed. I think a relaxed nation creates other kinds of flexibilities that shouldn’t exist. Let’s treat each other with the respect and the honor that we are due, and so the subliminal things play into that. If we’re coming to work in sneakers, if we’re coming to work in ripped jeans and plaid shirts, who are we representing?”

Part 1:Mikki Taylor on Her 30 Years at Essence
Part 3: Mikki Taylor’s Advice for Magazine Editors: ‘Take the Leap Forward’

Karl Lagerfeld has guest-edited Metro World News for some reason, and of course he had to chime in on recent headlines — including a new Newsweek article that painted him as overrated. As always, Lagerfeld’s comments were weird as hell. He told Metro that he didn’t appreciate the article, and since he had never heard of the writer, the piece was obviously crap.

Then he moved on to his thoughts on Tina Brown. “I feel sorry for Tina Brown that her paper is really going down,” said Lagerfeld. “It’s so skinny, it’s really what we call a ‘diet issue’ because it has no advertising and she certainly will not get advertising with this kind of article.”

The “we” he refers to must be all his friends who sit around and discuss magazine ad sales. We hear their gatherings can get quite rowdy.

Lagerfeld wasn’t finished there. He called Adele “too fat,” Russian men “very ugly,” said that he never votes because he knows too much about the political world and insisted that Michelle Obama once asked a designer why he didn’t “like her big black ass.”

We have nothing further to add.

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor is making waves with her book The Obamas, which is being described as a tell-all of the administration and First Family that chronicles the tensions within both. Naturally, everyone is clamoring to read it.

Except The First Lady.

In an interview with CBS News, conducted by Gayle King, Mrs. Obama cleared up some of the allegations from Kantor’s book — including clarifying the status of her relationship with former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as close, although the book painted it as strained.

She readily admitted that she hasn’t read Kantor’s book, adding:  “…who can write about how I feel? Who? What third person can tell me how I feel, or anybody for that matter?”

Valid questions.

According to Essence, Michelle Obama is one of the most influential black women in 2011, and we couldn’t agree more. The First Lady is featured on the cover of the magazine’s upcoming October issue (all by herself Oprah! Imagine that!), and inside she delivers a great message to young girls and women everywhere: That life is as good as the work you put into it.

“My story to young people around this country and around the world is, don’t look at me as the First Lady first; look at me as Michelle Obama, a girl who grew up on the South Side of Chicago,” she tells Essence. “Because I was there, and this is attainable.”

C’mon! How could you ever say anything bad about this woman? We love her. If you’ve got a problem with her then you’ve got a problem with us.

Mrs. Obama also provides the magazine with exclusive photos from her trip to Africa and gives other insights on her journey to essence.com as part of its diary feature.

Constance C.R. White, Essence’s Editor-in-Chief, said, “Michelle Obama is the quintessential Essence woman; impressively defining herself on her own terms.”

The issue hits newsstands September 12.

• FishbowlDC: Rest assured America, Michelle Obama was not  - repeat, was not – wearing mom jeans.
• UnBeige: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group has designed something called a “legacy model” soft drink bottle. The new bottle is easier to grip, making getting fat a little easier.
• SportsNewser: Another day, another person bashing the Miami Heat’s Big Three.

Since it’s Social Media Week here in New York, we thought we would take a minute to highlight an interesting panel from yesterday afternoon.

Sister blog WebNewser was on the scene at the Time & Life building to hear former Fishbowler and current Mediaite editor Rachel Sklar, New York Times social media editor Jennifer Preston, and EW.com managing editor Cyndi Stivers talk about the role of social media editors in newsgathering organizations, on a panel moderated by Time Inc. director of community strategy for lifestyle digital Melissa Parrish.

Some choice insights from the panel included learning what your audience wants to read on your Twitter stream. Said Sklar:

“For Mediaite, it was different because we were a scrappy little start-up financed by Dan Abrams and whoever his private investors are, with a very small team — four of us. As soon as we launched, I became the unofficial PR Newsfeed of Mediaite.

I don’t have much of a filter in terms of the stuff I post.

I was responding to every single negative comment on my personal Twitter, and I started getting emails from people saying, ‘Whoa, you’ve got to back off a little bit.’”

Stivers agreed that news judgment is sometimes necessary:

“I think a lot of times people do forget about the user experience or think about it as an afterthought: Would I be annoyed if I had to click to another page and it was only three lines? Would I feel duped? Would I feel misrepresented?”

And Preston’s insight into how social media is used at the Times was very revealing:

“As journalists for The New York Times, trust is key. You have to make sure you’re providing as much real-time information as you can, but you have to verify it.

You do not join the Cindy McCain or Michelle Obama fan club on Facebook.

We’re not allowed to say “tweet” yet at The New York Times, but you can post to Twitter through TimesPeople.”

Read more: Social Media Editors On The Role Of Social Media Editors –WebNewser

• Google-owned blog Hot Girls removed their racist picture of Michelle Obama, though it still shows up in a Google search. -WebNewser

• You can now buy books you read about in The Washington Post with their new direct link system to Amazon.com -GalleyCat

• NBC affiliate channel 15 in PA Alabama has about the worst billboard in history. And of course it involves Twitter. – FishbowlLA

• The “Real World: DC” trailer looks positively…boring. We’ll tune in to see if Washington Post‘s Joe Curl makes out with any of his housemates -FishbowlDC

Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravesnthal, Barbara Walters and Tom Colicchio. Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Time Inc.

Last night, Time magazine managing editor Richard Stengel hosted a distinguished panel of guests to debate the question that always surfaces around this time of year: who should be Time‘s Person of the Year?

Stengel co-moderated the good-natured debate with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — Time‘s Person of the Year in 2001. Panelists like Barbara Walters were encouraged to bring lists of possible Person of the Year candidates who met the title’s criteria, which includes having a global impact in the past year, for better or worse.

After running through lists of possible Person of the Year winners that included Bernie Madoff, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger and the Iranian protesters, the six-person panel ended the night in a three-three split. Walters agreed with TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and Gayle King that “the guys from Twitter,” meaning Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, should take the prize. Giuliani, “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio and Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravensthal all voted for “the economy,” settling on some amalgam of Ben Bernanke and the unemployed American worker as Person of the Year.

Stengel didn’t give any hints about who would end up the final winner later this year, but we’ll see in a few weeks when the Person of the Year issue hits newsstands.

Read on for more of the panel’s suggestions.

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