In your bone-chilling Monday media column: magazine prices going up, newspapers just giving up and letting you do it, Rahm Emanuel charms reporters, and big Hollywood tragedy!

Crazy thing: in print media, you make your money with advertising, subscriptions, and newsstand sales. Advertising sucks now. So all those cheap subscriptions designed to boost circulation to increase ad revenue are now a drag. So they're thinking about raising prices! Would you be willing to pay more than 47 cents for an issue of Newsweek? Maybe, if you love Jesus.


Elizabeth Sulcer is out as fashion director at BlackBook; and Gary Armstrong, chief marketing officer at Wenner Media, has left the company.

The Washington Times has decided to just give up on everything and run a full page of "citizen journalism" every day. Hyperlocal journalism is the future, allegedly! Perhaps you would like more depressing news from the newspaper industry? Creditors are demanding that they get oversight over what Brian Tierney, head of the bankrupt Philly papers, does, because he has not proven himself to be good at doing things. The executive editor of the LAT is giving interviews decrying his own paper's front page ad last week. And the city of Boston has now reached the "depression" stage of grief for the Boston Globe. That's enough for one day. (Although Romenesko has plenty more!)


Al Gore's you-empowering Current Media was going to have a $100 million IPO but now they're not having any IPO because come on, who's going to invest in Current Media right now?

Fox News "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier is feeling very special today, because powerful and attractive politico Rahm Emanuel said that "the White House senior staff" watches his show every single night. Rahm, you cad, you say that to all the reporters. "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier sliding into Obamamania or, alternately, wanton Obama-hating to assert his independence, TK.

Russell Crowe's new movie State of Play is being billed as Hollywood's last "Hurrah" for the "Hero Journalist" because investigative reporting is dying and it's all bloggers like us now chained to our desks and the last thing a blogger would ever do is try to report anything so investigative reporting is dead once and for all, along with hero journalists, and their depiction in film. We find this angle well-intentioned but tedious and incorrect. Some bloggers do investigative reporting, the money things will work themselves out, and Hollywood will always need more stupid hero journalists, so don't sweat it. Hey what about those Hero Postal Workers?