From L to R: TIME Managing Editor Rick Stengel (moderator); Speaker Newt Gingrich, Bryan Cranston, Padma Lakshmi, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Matt Lauer 
Photo credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images 

TIME hosted its annual Person of the Year panel today, where a seemingly random assortment of notable people give their opinions on who should get the honor. Moderated by managing editor Rick Stengel, panelists included:

Bryan Cranston – best known for his chemical concoctions on Breaking Bad, star of Argo.

Newt Gingrich – The only panelist who actually held the honor of “Person of the Year,” as speaker of the house back in 1995. Dubious about climate change.

Matt Lauer – host of the Today show, not dubious about climate change.

Padma Lakshmi – Host of Top Chef, woman.

Michael Nutter – Mayor of Philadelphia.

Here’s a roundup of the contenders, and what the panelists thought. Read more

Time magazine has selected “The Protester,” as its 2011 Person of The Year. Richard Stengel, Managing Editor of the magazine, says that the “Person of The Year” issue was a “product of a year’s worth of reporting and thinking,” and it shows. The cover is an illustration by Shepard Fairey, and inside there are interviews with the other finalists, including Kate Middleton, Paul Ryan, Admiral William McRaven, a photo spread by Ai Weiwei and emailed answers from Gabby Giffords.

FishbowlNY supports the decision to make “The Protester,” the Person of The Year. It’s a story that has been unfolding throughout the year, and shows no signs of fading any time soon. There might be some who disagree, but what story was bigger? Perhaps Steve Jobs could’ve had some consideration, but the Occupy movement is much more important.

We’ll be honest though, if Time had chosen Middleton, we would have lost our minds.

Time magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel has had a busy day. He was at the “Today” show first thing in the morning to announce this year’s Person of the Year (it’s Ben Bernanke if you haven’t already heard) and then he spent the rest of the day talking to various news outlets about the choice. We got a chance to ask him, too, why Bernanke?

“It’s a way of telling a larger story,” Stengel explained. “One of the things I like for Time to do is take some very large and complex issue and explain it for readers. And in a way, that is what Mike Grunwald‘s story does. When you learn something as a reporter or writer, the first thing you want to do is explain it to someone, and that’s the tone of the whole article. I really like that for our readers and I think people will get a lot out of it. For me, Bernanke was the best vehicle to talk about the largest, most macroeconomic issues.”

But what about the Twitter guys, who were so popular among the speakers at the Time Person of the Year debate last month?

“The Twitter thing came on strong there,” Stengel said of the debate. “And we did really think about it, but we had done a story on them a little but earlier and because we did “You” and user-generated content a few years ago [as Person of the Year] I felt like we had kind of covered that territory a bit.”

Read more

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Time magazine’s managing editor Richard Stengel was on the “Today” show this morning to (finally) announce the magazine’s Person of the Year: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The Person of the Year issue, due on newsstands on Friday, features the first full, on-the-record print interview with Bernanke since he was named chairman of the Fed. Said Stengel of the cover and cover story: “It’s a throwback cover. It’s like a Person of the Year cover from the 1940′s or 50′s. It’s a great, great story by our senior correspondent Michael Grunwald. And it’s basically about who is influencing how the economy operates.”

Adds Grunwald in the magazine:

“The main reason Ben Shalom Bernanke is Time‘s Person of the Year for 2009 is that he is the most important player guiding the world’s most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.”

The Person of the Year package also includes interviews with the Person of the Year runners-up: Nancy Pelosi, General Stanley McChrystal, Usain Bolt and “the Chinese worker,” — represented by five factory workers in China.

Read more: Person of the Year 2009 –Time

Previously: Gearing Up For Time‘s Person Of The Year Announcement

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We’ve been waiting — patiently! — for the announcement of Time magazine’s Person of the Year since attending a debate on the matter hosted by the magazine last month.

Then, on Friday, we learned that Time managing editor Richard Stengel would be making the big announcement live on Wednesday on the “Today” show. Today and tomorrow, the morning show will be doing features on the Person of the Year lists to get us even more excited for the big reveal. Hopefully we won’t be sick of Stengel and this whole waiting game by then. (Stengel was on today and will be back Wednesday, but he won’t be there tomorrow, we’re told.)

Today, Stengel narrowed a previously released top ten list of contenders to a “shortlist” of seven. Looks like Time‘s person is going to be one of these: Steve Jobs, Ben Bernanke, Nancy Pelosi, General Stanley McChrystal, Usain Bolt, Barack Obama or “the Chinese worker.”

And although the top person has already been chose by Time‘s top brass, you can still cast your vote for your choice.

We’re still disappointed to see the Twitter guys missing from this shortlist. What do you think?

Previously: Will Twitter Be Time‘s Person Of The Year?

We called it.

Last week, when faced with two “Person of the Year” polls, we predicted that the “Twitter Guys,” Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, were a shoe-in to win I Want Media’s eighth annual Media Person of the Year online poll. Today, the site revealed the results of the poll, with the Twitter team indeed taking top honors. They join the ranks of past media people of the year like Arianna Huffington and 2007′s winner, “Writers On Strike.”

Dorsey, Stone and Williams managed to beat out other top vote-getters this year like Oprah Winfrey and Glenn Beck. And in addition to the top 10 that I Want Media nominated for the poll, there were also write-in candidates like Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Rush Limbaugh and Nikki Finke, the site said.

We’ll still have to wait a few days to learn who Time magazine picked for their Person of the Year, and although it looked like the Twitter guys might win that competition, too, they weren’t included in the magazine’s recent online poll. But remember, Time magazine editors “reserve the right to disagree” and choose pretty much whoever they want anyway.

Previously: Tis The Season…For Person Of The Year Polls; Will Twitter Be Time‘s Person Of The Year?