Over the course of 2011, we covered an array of politicians, authors, entertainers, media mavens, and others as they discussed their crafts and their industries. (Here’s last year’s list.) We enjoyed most of the panels, lectures, and debates we took in, while some of them fell short. Here, a rundown of our 5 favorites, followed by the 10 quotes that defined the year in New York City media panels:

Who: Richard Just, Jodi Kantor, Ryan Lizza, moderated by Franklin Foer
What: “The Year of the Herminator: A Panel of Reporters Explain the Weirdest Republican Primary Ever”
Where: New America NYC
When: December 8, 2011
Thumbs: Way Up

Jon Huntsman is the sort of dad who would console his teenage daughter’s boyfriend when he crushes the boy’s father in an election. This the most recent development from a fascinating profile of the Republican candidate’s daughters– particularly Lizzy Huntsman, the one with Saturday Night Live aspirations– and the tension within the Huntsman campaign about their comedic recklessness.

The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza will likely spark some interesting conversation with his profile of Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus. Lizza, who flew with the Bachmanns aboard their campaign plane (dubbed the “Barbie Jet” by the candidate herself, we learn), reveals the rules of access between the candidate and the press: no pictures when she’s in casual clothes:

In an analysis of the evolution of President Obama‘s foreign policy, specifically in Libya, The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza suggests the uprisings and revolution that have swept the Middle East in 2011 may ultimately lead to a new “Obama Doctrine,” though one that may not look great on a bumper sticker. “One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as ‘leading from behind.’ That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding.”

In an article dramatically titled “As the World Burns,” Ryan Lizza gives readers of The New Yorker a lengthy account of Washington’s inept handling of climate change issues. Lizza also paints an unflattering portrait of Sen. Lindsey Graham, revealing that the Republican tried to expedite a climate change bill “before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was serious process.”

I can’t say I started crying during the opening credits of the upcoming HBO documentary By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, but only because I got to the theater five minutes late. The film — which will air on November 3 on HBO — begins in Iowa in 2007, eight months before the caucuses and light years before today, and spends nearly half of its two-hours focusing on the state and the young supporters populating its campaign headquarters.