WITH industry giants from Condé Nast to Time Inc. cutting jobs, slashing budgets and shuttering publications, it’s not difficult to imagine that the leading candidate to be IWantMedia.com’s Media Person of the Year might just be “The Laid-Off Journalist.” Rounding out the list of nominees for the site’s seventh annual poll, which opens today, are temperamental political blog queen Arianna Huffington, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, crop-haired MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow and Tina Fey, who channeled her inner Sarah Palin into a $7 million book deal. Also making the cut is embattled Tribune honcho Sam Zell, who has the distinction of being the only person on the list to have been sued by his own employees. Past winners include “striking writers” (2007), Comedy Central tandem Stephen Colbert (2006) and Jon Stewart (2004), and CNN’s Anderson Cooper (2005).