--- title: TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice | TIME description: TIME's editors on selecting 2012's Person of the Year and the four people on our short list--Malala Yousafzai, Tim Cook, Mohamed Morsi and Fabiola Gianotti canonical: https://time.com/video/g2AkZwa8/ og:title: TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice og:description: TIME's editors on selecting 2012's Person of the Year and the four people on our short list--Malala Yousafzai, Tim Cook, Mohamed Morsi and Fabiola Gianotti og:url: https://time.com/video/g2AkZwa8/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/g2AkZwa8/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice twitter:description: TIME's editors on selecting 2012's Person of the Year and the four people on our short list--Malala Yousafzai, Tim Cook, Mohamed Morsi and Fabiola Gianotti twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/g2AkZwa8/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/g2AkZwa8.m3u8) (5:07)  _Published 2012-12-19. TIME's editors on selecting 2012's Person of the Year and the four people on our short list--Malala Yousafzai, Tim Cook, Mohamed Morsi and Fabiola Gianotti_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:29 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [See Every TIME Person Of The Year Cover: 2024](/video/6xFCrv5G/) ### See Every TIME Person Of The Year Cover: 2024 [See Every TIME Person Of The Year Cover in 30 Seconds](/video/ufhQdstd/) ### See Every TIME Person Of The Year Cover in 30 Seconds [The Choice: Why Ebola Fighters are TIME's Person of the Year](/video/sdE8xHR2/) ### The Choice: Why Ebola Fighters are TIME's Person of the Year --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Hi. I'm Rick Stengel, I'm the editor of Time, and I am here with Rodika Jones who is the Executive Editor of Time, and more importantly the Editor of the Person of the Year issue. And the Person of the Year for 2012 is Barack Obama So how did we choose him? Why did we choose him? It really was a, it was a few days after the election. It was when the dust was settling and I had obviously read our own story that Michael Scherer reported about the Obama data team and how instrumental they had been in getting out the vote. He writes very convincingly in this issue that it, it wasn't just a question of smart strategy and data mining and all of those things. They're very exciting things and they're technological advances and they're important. But ultimately, Michael writes people come to the polls to vote for Barack Obama. He has that poll. He is, is still a symbol to people for something that they want the nation to be. And and I began to think about that in the days after the election and think you know what? In a way this is a more compelling story than the story of 2008. I'd certainly if that he gets reelected, when he gets reelected with unemployment being 8 % or higher, with all of these economic headwinds against him. With this idea that he was very vulnerable because his first term hadn't achieved everything. Right. That he wanted. That would. Put him in the pantheon. And, and if you look at second term elections of, of recent vintage, basically, I mean, Ronald Regan had economic rhythm going with him. Bill Clinton did as well. George Bush was a war president by that time. The circumstances that Barack Obama had to fight against were, in some ways, harder than anybody since FDR. When we spoke to him, too he has a freedom now as a second term president to be thinking about his legacy. He's not thinking about another campaign. As you write in your editor's letter, he never has to say again, the words I approve this message. [ MUSIC ] Everybody of course, obsesses about who the Person of the Year is, but we are also busy obsessing about the whole year, and how this magazine issue and the whole package online and on the tablet, how we can tell the whole story of 2012 and all the things that happened. And one of them, was that Tim Cook had his first year, full year at Apple. I mean, obviously he took over from Steve Jobs. A very, very difficult act to follow. But in that, in his first year he's practically doubled Apple's value. He's extremely well- versed. Right. In Apple in China and the rise of, of Asia which is another reason why his selection is forward- looking because that is where so much of our future lies. [ MUSIC ] Person we all thought about a lot and I thought about a lot was Malala. The 15 year old Pakistani girl who was injured by the Taliban, whose father is a, is a child and woman rights activist and, and she has become this extraordinary figure. Championing, women's rights around the world. I did think it was also, a little bit reminiscent of our choice last year, the protester. I mean I think the real, the compelling thing about her is she is a child still herself. She's still recuperating, she's in the hospital in London. She was shot and targeted by the Taliban and obviously, that's been a huge trauma for her and her family. But she will come out of this hopefully more powerful and with a stronger voice than ever before. [ MUSIC ] Another person we've thought very seriously about was Mohammed Morsi. Mm- hmm. The new President of Egypt and Mohammed Morsi in the Egyptian context, is in the middle. He's in the middle between the Salofes to his right, who are far more extreme, even, than the Muslim Brotherhood, the party he came from. And the liberal secularists on the left, who are, for the most part, not terribly well organized. But have, in this period since his decree. Abrogating the courts. They have become more powerful and they have become more organized. So he's right in the center of so many of the most important currents going on in the world right now. Our final runner up is Fabiola Gianotti who was one of the lead scientists behind the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Which is a particle that was first prophesied by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, and in fact, this is the final link in the general theory of relativity. But it's the particle that actually gives the universe mass. And she was part of a team of scientists who. Led this discovery. But we were particularly inspired by her as a woman in physics. You know, it's a very male- dominated field. And, and she has a background I think, partly in the humanities. And has added to this discovery a sort of lyricism that has particularly touched people who've become interested in it over the past year. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Magazine's Person of the Year: The Choice","description":"TIME's editors on selecting 2012's Person of the Year and the four people on our short list--Malala Yousafzai, Tim Cook, Mohamed Morsi and Fabiola Gianotti","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/g2AkZwa8/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2012-12-19T12:45:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/g2AkZwa8.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/g2AkZwa8/","duration":"PT5M7S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/g2AkZwa8/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```