As Executive Editor of TIME, Priscilla Painton weighs in on a range of editorial decisions, and plays a key role in week-to-week editing of the magazine. She assumes regular responsibility for both the uprfront breaking-news section, "Notebook," and "Society," the section that produces penetrating, in-depth analytical pieces on a wide range of concerns.

Recent stories in TIME's Society section have examined "what is a life worth" in light of financial settlements proposed for relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against America, and also, how one ex-con has fared, in what is now the largest release of prisoners in the nation's history (630,000 in 2002).

Before assuming her current title in January 2002, Painton had been an assistant managing editor. She was responsible forTIME's political reporting as the magazine's Nation Editor for six years, in which she helped guide readers through the the re-election of Bill Clinton in 1996, the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, the campaign of 2000 and its vote-counting battle that led to George W. Bush's assumption of the presidency in December of 2000. She and her team produced that year’s “Person of the Year” cover on George W. Bush. In 1998, she oversaw the magazine's coverage of the Kenneth Starr investigation and President's Clinton's impeachment trial and edited TIME's "Men of the Year" cover story on Kenneth Starr and Bill Clinton.

In 1996 and 1997, she oversaw TIME's investigation of the campaign finance scandals, which won a prestigious Goldsmith Investigative Journalism Prize.

Since coming to TIME, Painton has worked in various sections of the magazine, having overseen the Business section and written extensivley about politics, American culture and social issues. She has contributed to cover stories on the right to die, hospital emergency rooms, date rape, and wrote covers on country music, Orlando and Ted Turner as "Person of the Year."

Painton joined TIME as a correspondent in January 1989, from the Atlanta Journal & Constitution where she was a political and projects reporter. She has also worked at The Washington Post and The Berkshire Eagle, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Fluent in French, Painton has a B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College. Born in Rome and raised in Paris, she now lives in Bronxville, New York, with her husband Timothy K. Smith, who is an assistant managing editor at Fortune magazine, and their children Anthony and Isabel.