New York Daily News gossip writer Sean Evans—one half of the paper's Gatecrasher column—has been let go, we confirmed this afternoon.

We understand that newspapers are having a really tough time right now. But is the solution offering the public free weight loss tips? The Daily News "diet "hotline" launched this week. Call 212-210-2044 between the hours of 9am and 5pm and you'll be connected to the paper's "talented team of nutrition and fitness experts" who are "dishing out free advice on exercising safely and eating right." The paper reports that they've fielded 659 calls since the service started the service on Monday. Hey, at least it's better than bingo. [NYDN]

New York's tabloids are in high dudgeon over yesterday's Air Force One flyby. Who got the best headline and front-page out of it?

• More on the decision by Condé Nast to shut down Portfolio. [NYO, Gawker]
• Newspaper circulation figures for the past six months show steep declines at most major papers, including the Times, Post, and Daily News. One bright spot: the Wall Street Journal, which experienced a tiny, 0.6% gain. [E&P]
• Phil Falcone's Harbinger, the hedge fund that battled for a piece of the New York Times Co. last year, may now be looking to unload its stake. [WSJ]
• CNN has fallen behind MSNBC and Fox News, as you may have heard. [NYT]
• PRWeek is going monthly. But it'll still be called PRWeek, so you know. [NYT]
• Obsessed starring Beyonce was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [THR]

Don't let the barroom slapfights and gangster garb fool you: Hud Morgan, the Men's Vogue editor turned aspiring screenwriter, can be delightfully helpful. For example, the ex-gossip nearly answered our question, "Is Hud Morgan Begging For His Old Daily News Gig?"

• Jon Stewart ripped Jim Cramer apart once again on his show last night. And now Cramer is planning to appear on The Daily Show on Thursday. [Gawker]
• William Morris and Endeavor are said to be in merger talks. [NYT]
• Time Inc. chief Ann Moore says the company is thinking about turning Time.com and People.com subscription-based sites. [Folio]
• For its part, Disney is launching a new "portal." It's 1999 all over again! [WSJ]
• Former NBC prez Katherine Pope is said to be in talks with News Corp. president Peter Chernin about joining his new production firm. [THR]
• Is liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz destined for a gig with MSNBC? [NYO]
• Needless to say, the Daily News is taking issue with the list suggesting the paper is likely to go out of business in the near future. [Crains]
• The plug has been pulled on David Alan Grier's Comedy Central series, Chocolate News. Let's all take a moment to mourn, okay? [NYT]

Shallon Lester, the NY Daily News gossip girl who caused some hard feelings by trying to land her own reality show and posing for crazy magazine covers, quit today. To become a music flack!

• Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, the son of New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., is joining the paper next week as a Metro reporter. [NYO]
• Following a huge fourth quarter loss, Playboy says it's now up for sale. [Folio]
• It's rumored that Viacom is laying off staff today. [Gawker]
• Newsweek staffers are unhappy about recent changes at the mag. [NYP]
• Sean Delonas is in hot water for his cartoon in the Post today. [E&P]
• Mort Zuckerman says he can fix the Daily News by printing it in color. [MM]
• Vanity Fair is shutting down its German edition. [WWD]

Mort Zuckerman is in pretty good shape for a man his age; he even mixes with the ladies a fair amount, an impressive feat considering he's in his 70s. But Zuckerman has named a successor at the New York Daily News anyway. His 11-year-old daughter. (On the bright side, if she ended up taking over tomorrow, it's unlikely she could really do any more damage to an industry that's already on its last legs.) The clip from Zuckerman's appearance on Charlie Rose's show earlier this week is above.

• Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is cutting employee benefits. [NYP]
• Former Self editor and Bernie Madoff victim Alexandra Penney has landed a book deal with Voice, an imprint of Disney's Hyperion Books. [NYT]
• A few photos of Michelle Obama from the new issue of Vogue. [HP]
• How SI's Selena Roberts landed the Alex Rodriguez steroid story. [NYO]
• Former NYDN editor Michael Cooke is leaving Chicago for Toronto. [CT]
• John Grisham is close to signing a big e-book deal with Random House. [WSJ]
• The Justice Department plans to investigate the proposed (and controversial) merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. [AP]

• Magazine newsstand sales tumbled during the second half of 2008. [NYT]
• The Grammys were seen by an estimated 19.1 million people last night. [AP]
• The Times reports on the Times's recent troubles, conveniently concluding the paper's "positioned itself well to ride out another year of recession." [NYT]
• Steve Brill has a few thoughts on how the Times can save itself. [Poynter]
• Not surprisingly, SI is milking every last dollar out if its swimsuit issue. [WSJ]
• Following the news last week that Universal and DreamWorks were parting ways, Disney announced today it would distribute DreamWorks's films. [THR]
• Jim Cramer's ratings are up; his stock picks are as lousy as ever. [Barron's]
• A Queens hairstylist is suing the Daily News after the paper accidentally identified her as "Manhattan Madam" Kristin Davis. Twice. [Regret the Error]

Last October, Maureen White, the former finance chair for the Democratic National Committee and wife of Steve Rattner, was arrested for drunk driving. According to the police report, White was pulled over in her Mercedes at the Throgs Neck Bridge and failed a field sobriety test, registering a blood-alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. (She subsequently pleaded guilty to the charges, paid a fine, and had her driver's license suspended for 90 days.) That the Democratic fundraiser and wife of one of the city's most prominent financiers had been arrested was certainly news, and the Daily News covered the arrest a day later in an article titled "Democratic Money Queen in Booze Bust." But the paper pulled the article down soon after—it was originally located here—and now we know why. A source inside the News tells us the order came from "the very top," namely Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman.

Ohmigod, in an NYC sports-related tabloid scandal even bigger than the Pedro Martinez cockfighting video—made better by the distinct possibility of being totally false—a New York Knick has been accused of being gay (for dudes!):

Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman is the latest billionaire revealed to have fallen prey to ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. How many of Rupert Murdoch's papers does it take to cover the story?

At some point last night, the Daily News fed the Web address above into its RSS feed. The XML file appears to have been subsequently cleansed, but Google Reader still has the original address, attached to the much tamer headline, "Side Dish: Juliette Lewis isn't into 'Gossip'." Clicking it is a dead end, of course, but we're now way more intrigued by what the tabloid's gossip section didn't say than by anything it could have possibly printed about Jared Kushner's girlfriend. Maybe it's a clever bit of reverse psychology, hyping tomorrow's Rush & Molloy. Anyone care to clue us in?

Real estate developer and Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman doesn't make too many appearances on Fox News or Fox Business Channel, which may have something to do with the fact both networks are controlled by his arch-enemy, Rupert Murdoch. Today Zuckerman appeared on Fox Business to discuss the bailout and made the egregious error of quoting a figure from the Financial Times. Didn't Mort get the memo in the green room that you're only supposed to cite Murdoch's Wall Street Journal on the air? Apparently not! But the tension between the two billionaires seems to have cooled: Zuckerman says he thinks the Journal has only gotten better since News Corp. took over, and—just in case you're tuning in, Rupert!—Mort would also like you to know he thanks you kindly for his free subscription. Also: Zuckerman thinks the bailout should have been extended to newspaper publishers, too. Now that would be convenient, wouldn't it?

The Daily News is locked in a cutthroat tabloid war with the New York Post. The winner won't be determined by journalistic quality, obviously. No, it's all about stunts! Gotta bring in those eyeballs. So the Daily News hired a Sarah Palin lookalike and taped her walking around Manhattan, fooling the hell out of clueless (likely) Daily News readers! One guy has her sign a hockey puck. Then she tries to go to NBC and see Tina Fey but is kicked out. I see it as a parable of media domination of our political discourse. Watch the full clip after the jump, and then please stop sending us Sarah Palin Gawker Stalkers: Click to view

The Daily News sent a Sarah Palin look-alike to hit the streets (with a camera crew right behind her, naturally). CNN's Jeanne Moos spent yesterday roaming around town with Barack Obama and John McCain masks. Did they move Halloween up a month or something? [Gawker, Mollygood]

Among the (at least) 25 people at the NY Daily News taking buyouts, we hear, is city editor Jill Coffey, who last month talked the third, craziest climber down off the New York Times building. Any departing journalists want to spill some stories of tabloid glory, or regret? Email us.

• About 24 million people watched Joe accept the Democratic nomination for veep on Wednesday night. [TV Decoder]