is Pope Francis [MUSIC]

I'm here with Radhika Jones the Deputy Managing Editor who

ran the whole POY

process so Radhika why the Pope? The Pope came on to the scene in March

with this kind of almost it was like fanfare and also the opposite a fanfare

he immediately made his presence felt in a way that that

seemed different from from Popes in recent memory.

He's now head of the Catholic Church 1.2 billion-strong

followers and the largest ongoing historical institution in the world so

he's in a position of immense power.

But he introduced himself as a man of great humility

even in a very short amount of time he's only been Pope for 9 months. He really has refocused a

conversation that's global

putting more emphasis on poverty and the poor putting emphasis on

inequality of wealth these are conversations that that we've been

having as a nation

that we've been having globally but without really an international figure

to preside over them. The pope has put himself in the position of being that figure.

[crowd noise]

How would you compare

him as a leader to the other leaders on the scene? He obviously

has less power and some literal sense he doesn't have

armies to deploy and yet his leadership seems like it has really as you say

captured people's imagination. Well one thing that we often talk about a person of the year

is that balance between institutional power and individual power

and in this case you have a man with with nominal

power but someone who's using it in ways but feel almost like

a grassroots initiative. We had many many conversations

about an interesting other man with a mission

who also came out of nowhere this year and that is Edward Snowden.

Edward Snowden a 29-year-old contractor

working with the National Security Agency suddenly

left his job flew to Hong Kong and revealed himself as the sources of major leaks from

the NSA and he

like the pope having disrupted the system has also continued to

to provide us with news over the past six months. You know, one of the things

that we love about putting this issue together is that as much as it's about

the choice and the person appears on the cover

we also want to put together magazine and

a package online that really captures the whole year and all of the

major news stories that happen and I would say that the story generated by

Edward Snowden

that of surveillance by the NSA and in general the concept of

digital surveillance and how that

security that comes from that intersects with personal privacy

that was a huge story this year.

Another figure that, also I think many of us would not have

recognized or imagined would be on the short list this year just a year ago

is the freshman senator from Texas Ted Cruz

[Crowd Noise]

Ted Cruz is a fascinating figure on this list and

in away he represents what didn't happen

this year in American government which is a lot of

lawmaking. I think it was the least effective congress in terms of bills

passed

in recorded history. Ted Cruz

is an incredibly fractious politician he instigated

the initiative to defund Obamacare that eventually led to the government

shutdown for 16 days.

Which some would argue really hurt the Republican brand.

Many would argue it really hurt Ted Cruz but if you talk to Ted Cruz about it he would say that

fallout from the shutdown has only made him a stronger force.

One name on the list who is not really a divisive figure of hero or villain

would be Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It was a particularly bad year in Syria. The Civil War has been going on for

a couple years

death toll has risen to a hundred thousand. There are now than

two million Syrian refugees and of course this summer saw the alleged use

by

the Assad regime of chemical weapons to kill not only adults but also

about 400 children something that really touched

the world and and suggested and to President Obama

among others that America and other countries should intervene

that didn't happen he's still there still

exercising a whole lot of power and still flummoxing leaders in the west

In terms of how to effect any change in regime

and he's a major player in the politics of the region which remains a real hot spot

globally.

And then the last person on our short list may be as surprised as anyone to find

herself there and it's Edith Windsor. We really wanted to capture this

shift that I think we've all seen happen in the United States over the past

year

to do with gay rights and gay marriage in particular. Edith Windsor's case

came before the Supreme Court this year and her victory resulted in the

overturning of DOMA the Defense of Marriage Act

which discriminated against gay

marriages in states where those marriages had been legal.

She's 84 years old. She was fighting

for the right to spousal benefits after her

spouse had died and in the time since that verdict came down she has become a real

icon of the gay rights movement and has really embraced that role it's wonderful

to see and

wonderful to read about.