Bobby Ghosh has been named the new editor of Time International. Ghosh has been with Time since 1998. He was most recently deputy editor of Time International. In 2007, Ghosh was named a senior editor of Time Europe. He has also been Time’s Baghdad bureau chief.

“He is entrepreneurial by nature and has many ideas on how to grow the Time brand,” wrote Rick Stengel, Time’s managing editor, in a memo. “And, finally, this appointment has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he saved me from getting tear-gassed in Tahrir Square last year. Congratulations to Bobby on his new role. He will be great.”

Ghosh is succeeding Jim Frederick, who is moving on from Time to pursue other interests. He will remain a contributing editor to Time.

The memo from Martha Nelson and Stengel is below.

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Now that Time Inc. staffers no longer have to worry about moving to Iowa to join Meredith, some are breathing a sigh of relief. The New York Times reports that several employees expressed confidence in the new, independent Time Inc. despite the fact that it will start off with between $500 million and $1 billion in debt. Now that’s optimism.

Rick Stengel, Time’s managing editor, was particularly upbeat. He told the Times the spinoff from Time Warner was exciting. “It’s sort of put up or shut up time,” he said. “I think great, let’s really test that hypothesis that people will pay for great content and great journalism. We can now invest our own capital.”

Other anonymous Time Inc. staffers expressed the same sentiments. One mentioned that a lot of people blamed Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, for Time Inc. faltering. “There was a real sense that Jeff didn’t have either interest in Time Inc. and magazine publishing and didn’t have faith in it as a business going forward,” a former, anonymous Time Inc. exec, told the Times. “His focus was always the film and TV side of the company.”

We imagine the next few years are going to be rough for Time Inc., but in order to keep looking on the bright side, we think everything will work out.

Moritz Loew has been named Time’s new vice president of sales. Loew comes to the magazine from his own consulting company. Prior to that he was senior vice president of sales for The Huffington Post. Loew was fired from HuffPost after a background check turned up an arrest warrant regarding a DWI.

“Time continues to aggressively expand its digital chops, and it was very important to find someone with an exceptional digital IQ, tremendous industry relationships, a true understanding of the power of brands and the appreciation for the vitality of a winning culture,” wrote Jed Hartman, Time Inc.’s news and business group publisher, in a memo to staffers. “When I met Moritz, I knew I had found someone who embodied all of these qualities.”

Hartman’s full memo is below.

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Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s Cover Battle. This week we have Time versus Bon Appétit. Time went with a photo of a confident looking Sheryl Sandberg. One question: Do people really hate her? We had no idea. Maybe they will now? That would be mean of Time.

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Time turns 90 this week. To celebrate, the magazine has a slew of offerings, including a slideshow/history lesson as taught by Time, an interactive cover feature (tweet your favorite and it’ll show up here) and some birthday advice from Joel Stein.

“For me, 90 is not so much a milestone but evidence that for nine decades Time is always new, always of the moment,” Rick Stengel, managing editor of Time, writes in this week’s issue. “We have to be because we cover the way the world is changing and that never stops.”

Happy birthday Time. Thanks for sticking around and not doing more covers like the one shown here.

Steven Brill just set a Time record. His 36 page cover story titled “Bitter Pill” — a thorough investigation into every aspect of health care pricing — is the longest single piece ever published in Time magazine’s history.

In the article, Brill wonders, “When we debate health care policy in America, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills are so high?”

The entire piece is online, but it is 36 pages, so better set aside a good chunk of time to read it.

Chris Christie isn’t a big fan of Time‘s depiction of him on its cover. While we said the cover — which featured Christie’s mug alongside copy reading “The Boss” — was alluding to his handling of Hurricane Sandy relief and his ties to Bruce Springsteen, Christie felt otherwise.

“I’m reporting Time magazine to the anti-Italian defamation league,” Christie said on Don Imus’ radio show. “I mean look at that thing. It says ‘boss’ underneath. I mean, come on. I can’t wait for that to come home for my kids to see it.”

Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, was surprised that Christie was so upset.

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Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s Cover Battle. This round pits GQ against Time. GQ, for its “Sexiest Women of The 21st Century” feature, put Beyonce on its cover. There is probably nothing we can say about this photograph that won’t sound 100 percent pervy, but here’s what we came up with: Are those pockets on her shorts? Hmm… Still seems pervy.

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President Barack Obama has been named Time’s Person of The Year. Here at FishbowlNY we were hoping that Malala Yousafzai was going to win, not just because she deserves to be honored as much as possible, but because there hasn’t been a woman POY for 26 years. Yousafzai was the runner-up, followed by Tim Cook.

Rick Stengal, Time’s managing editor, writes that Obama was chosen because he is making his mark on history:

Obama is the first Democratic President since FDR to win more than 50 percent of the vote in consecutive elections and the first President since 1940 to win re-election with an unemployment rate north of 7.5 percent. He has stitched together a winning coalition and perhaps a governing one as well. His presidency spells the end of the Reagan realignment that had defined American politics for 30 years. We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America.

Feel free to be upset about Obama winning or to not care at all.

Time readers/4Chan voted rocket-blastin’ Kim Jong-Un as 2012′s Person of The Year, but we still await the official Time Person of The Year announcement, which will come tomorrow morning.

In the meantime — in our continued effort to get you all ramped up about something that doesn’t really matter at all — below are the finalists for the award:

• Marissa Mayer
• Tim Cook
• Malala Yousafzai
• Bill and Hillary Clinton
• Undocumented Americans
• President Barack Obama
• Mohammed Morsi
• Fabiola Giannati