Joanne Lipman may be deaf to warnings from her colleagues. (The embattled Portfolio editor ran a poorly-sourced rehash of a 21-year-old story in the latest issue of the Conde Nast business magazine, despite protests from fact checkers and editors.) But that doesn't stop others from volunteering advice. The brittle editrix approached Michael Kinsley, editor of The New Republic in its heyday, about a freelance piece. She got something else. Says Kinsley: "I was talking to Joanne Lipman-who I'd never met-and she talked to me about writing a piece and I said I'll write you a memo about what I think of the first few issues and what problems you have; I could just be another voice. I'm sure more criticism is just what's she's in the mood for." And I'm sure that Lipman even more delighted by Kinsley's willingness to share their private conversation with the New York Observer.

Better start brown-bagging it if you're a New York Times employee; starting February 4, the cost-cutting newspaper will increase cafeteria prices by 3.9%, according to an email announcement to staffers today. But don't worry! Management would like you to know that coffee prices won't change-hungry employees hopped up on caffeine are both prettier and more industrious! Wonder if those catered lunches for masthead-occupiers are going to get a price-jump? Oh wait, they're already free! To be fair, prices will still be "8% to 10% below the average for the neighborhood," according to the memo. The Times cafeteria is run by Restaurant Associates, which also manages the eateries at Conde Nast, Hearst and Google-anyone know if those companies are also bumping up their prices? Let us know. Memo after the jump.

We're hearing that Condé Nast Media Group senior vice president Amy Churgin, who was in charge of new media, left the publishing company in a bit of a hurry last week. She's bounced around there a bit this year, spending just seven weeks last winter as the publisher of the group's Gourmet after a seven-year stint at Architectural Digest. Know anything else? Let us know.

Howell Raines, the editor who tried to shake up the New York Times, and failed, has returned to regular journalism. Radar's Fresh Intelligence reports he'll be writing a media column for Portfolio. Conde Nast's business magazine, which sells poorly on the newsstand, could use a bit of a kick to the editorial metabolism. But Howell Raines, having retired to a life of fishing in the Poconos, is no longer in that line of work.

The Devil Wears Prada, a movie redeemed only by Meryl Streep's portrayal of a brittle editrix much like Vogue's Anna Wintour, has had a pernicious effect on a generation of young women. Venus Williams, the tennis star, is preparing for her next career, as a fashion designer. Her modest ambition? "I'll be able to get an entry position getting coffee for hopefully Anna Wintour." [Financial Times]

Joanne Lipman's Portfolio has not had the impact it hoped on the business conversation, but the unhappy Conde Nast magazine is certainly making a contribution to the journalistic lexicon. When the editor's not in earshot, staffers have been known to deliberately mangle the name of the embattled magazine: referring not to 'Portfolio', but to 'Fort Polio'. If only such wit made it into the magazine. But Portfolio's editor is notorious for shooting down ideas before she understands them.

A message just came in via Dodgeball, the largely defunct text messaging network that was once New York's great internet hope, about a wake for Flip, the scrapbook site for teenaged girls just shuttered by Conde Nast. "It's like two social networking black holes crashing into each other," writes our tipster.

Are New York's established media companies entirely incapable of developing web properties? Barry Diller's IAC just fired the head of Ask.com after the search engine's obscure "algorithm" campaign failed to eat into Google's lead among web users. Now, word that Conde Nast is laying off staff on Flip.com, a social network for teen girls which was the magazine group's biggest greenfield web initiative. Flip.com attracts less than 20% of the audience it had last April. The new plan, we hear: let Flip scrapbooks be embedded in other more successful West Coast social networks such as Facebook and Myspace. This is what New York media is reduced to: a widget. (Anyone have the Flip.com layoff email? Forward it me!)

Let's be generous and accept Memo Pad's word that Portfolio is selling 15-18% of the copies it ships to newsstands. (We'd heard some issues had registered as low as 12%). That's still deeply embarrassing for Conde Nast, which has committed $100m to the new business title, the biggest magazine launch in years — and maybe one of the last before print enters its final decline. One Portfolio writer says of the magazine's numbers: "Well, that's not that much lower than Cargo." Yes, but Cargo's dead.

Drew Schutte, the longtime publisher of Conde Nast's Wired, will now run the sales side of The New Yorker and its website. David Carey, publisher of Portfolio, is adding Wired to his responsibilities. [BusinessWeek]

The bespectacled magazine publisher, who ran the New Yorker's marketing and ad sales before being roped in to help Joanne Lipman launch Portfolio, has done better than merely surviving the new year's massacre at Conde Nast. He's now the leading candidate to replace Chuck Townsend as chief executive of the elite magazine group. Nobody wins corporate infighting without making critics but, if Carey has them, we can't find them. "Everyone wishes there was some dirt on David Carey, but there ain't," says one Conde exec. The Portfolio publisher doesn't even get the blame for the business magazine's troubled launch.

Graydon Carter's diatribes against the Bush administration have passed through the full arc of a great journalistic campaign. When it began, five years ago, the president was the still the victor of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Vanity Fair editor an aging liberal prophet in the wilderness, irritating, and mocked. Then Graydon Carter because simply a prophet, vindicated by the collapse of the Bush presidency. And now? The obsession continues (the latest editor's letter even compares George Bush to the awful mid-level manager of the Office) — but it feels dated. As we've been told by the pundits, the results of the Iowa caucuses show that the electorate has moved beyond the war in Iraq, Bush and the Clintons. Graydon Carter has not.

Everyone in the magazine world is getting very excited about the new year's massacre at Conde Nast, the publisher of titles such as Vanity Fair and Vogue. Conde is tightly controlled by the Newhouse family, and its office politics have all the transparency of the Brezhnev-era Politburo. But we're told by one insider that Lou Cona, formerly the publisher of the New Yorker, is stepping up by moving to group ad sales, even if the role sounds less glamorous. Anyway, business: boring! There's one amusing tidbit. Gina Sanders, promoted to publisher of Lucky magazine, presided over the huge success of Teen Vogue. We're sure her continued ascension has nothing to do with her marriage to (pictured left) Steve Newhouse, heir-apparent to the Conde Nast empire.

Is it really possible that Portfolio, Conde Nast's troubled business magazine, only sells 12% of the copies it delivers to newsstands? Answers to nick@gawker.com

When Paul Boutin noted Wired founder Louis Rossetto's new job as a chocolatier earlier today, I shook my head. Not because I thought it was a bad career move, but because I suspect most Valleywag readers have no idea who Louis Rossetto is. Or perhaps even what Wired is. (Boutin and I can't forget: We met each other while working there.) True story: At a party earlier this year, I watched as a startup founder told Wired publisher Drew Schutte that he'd never heard of the magazine before it bought Reddit.

"Major magazine looking for an assistant to supporting their Director of Public Relations," reads this Craigslist ad, posted this afternoon. The position, which is either a "fantastic opportunity" or an "excellent opportunity" (Perhaps both excellent and fantastic! Probably neither!) entails working "side-by-side with some of the top industry professionals in PR and publishing." Also it's a six-month contract job, because God forbid anyone hire anyone ever. This "major" magazine has offices in both L.A. and New York, which narrows it down to quite few. Could Vanity Fair's Beth Kseniak be hiring? (Maybe if you get the job she'll let you clean up the parking lot after the Oscar party!) Vogue, W, and Details are also possibilities. It's Friday afternoon and we got nothing—any ideas?

In a surprising move for the sluggish CondeNet (Wired, a brand founded on the Internet's future, has just gotten around to hosting video on its website), Conde Nast is partnering with YouTube to distribute videos from its media empire — and getting a slice of the advertising revenue.

Fortune.com — what magazine publisher is calling Fortune's little corner of CNNMoney.com — relaunched today, and the Observer's Media Mob notes the site is "sleeker, whiter, cleaner" but bears a "strikingly" duh-we're-copycats resemblance to Portfolio.com. Whatever, let us know when Forbes.com relaunches with a design inspired by Fake Steve Jobs's Blogger template. In the meantime, here's a Valleywag poll asking you to pick which Web design best helps you forget that no one reads magazines — if you can even tell them apart.

Slate's Mickey Kaus thinks that supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle's scheme to Source Interlink (he is the majority shareholder, and by the way, that stock is so deep in the toilet) with American Media Inc. gives the Clintons control of that company's tabloids. But we hear this weird rumor that Conde Nast will make a play for Burkle's company while it's dirt cheap, heading off the deal with American Media.

How in the name of all that is magabranding and holy can Details put Kevin Federline on its cover FOR THE SECOND TIME? (The first was all the way back in March, 2005: "the second-worst selling issue of the year," says WWD.) Do not understand! [Memo Pad]