These are difficult times for Condé Nast. AdAge reported yesterday the publishing giant is planning to slash the ad sales group managed by Richard Beckman; today, Keith Kelly of the Post reports some of the company's flagship titles have seen a 30 to 40 percent decline in revenues, and the company has "taken a dagger to its corporate pension plan" in order to reduce costs. Meanwhile, the Observer's John Koblin reports chairman Si Newhouse and CEO Chuck Townsend have asked editors to trim their discretionary budgets (which includes items like messengers, first-class airfare, and car services), and says a broader round of job cuts is inevitable. Of course, it's hard for any editor to trim his or her own staff—and it can be difficult for top execs to take a step back and see the absurd spending when they're so close to it.

It looks like Condé Nast editors will indeed have to cut their budgets another 10 percent, as previously suspected, including through layoffs in both advertising and editorial. But what will happen to the swankness?

In your socialist Tuesday media column: Nancy Pelosi helps newspapers (symbolically), Courtney Friel says "OMG," rumors of cheapskatism at Interview, and naptime for Jim Kelly:

Bad days for MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe: A tell-all book about the lowbrow social network's shady origins is hitting the shelves as a Wall Street analyst predicts layoffs. How long will he last?

Conde Nast could really use some good news. Instead, today's news is that the company is planning cuts in its media group, which handles its biggest advertisers and marketers. That's even worse than it sounds.

College hires 50 laid-off journalists to "teach 'news literacy' to non-journalism majors." Good!

In your sunny Friday media column: Dan Peres has balls, high school reporters have dreams, Arthur Sulzberger has an honest moment, and the media at large has nothing to look forward to:

Bernie Madoff's in jail! The stock market is up! Enjoy the temporary dose of relief, because the recession is just getting bleaker. Even fun is now bankrupt:

In your rumormongering Thursday media column: rumors of layoffs and shenanigans at Viacom and Sesame Street (updated), Felix Salmon jumps the Fort Polio ship, Jay Carney flackery, and a journalism grad is broken:

Met Museum Plans Major Layoffs [NYT]
The Met Drops a Cool Million for an Old Master [NYM]

Rodale is folding the men's magazine Best Life. The May issue (out next month) will be its last. The move was just announced in a staff memo, copied below:

We already know the recession sucks for journalists because—to generalize slightly—they have been laid off. But it sucks for working journalists, too. Guess who else got laid off: all their sources!

Item: We hear that New York Magazine recently called in its department heads and told them to prepare for more budget cuts. New York Magazine is the Gilded Age's demise, paper version.

AOL, the failing Time Warner Internet unit, is laying off another 700 employees via emails alerting them to an "important meeting." Even the pink-slipping process is predictable now. And former CEO Steve Case? He's sad.

You know when a labor union is proposing to eliminate paid vacation and cut pay 5 percent, things will not end well for workers. So it is at the San Francisco Chronicle.

After Valleywag reported that Apple had laid off 50 salespeople last week, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling issued a blanket denial: "Not true." Turns out the layoffs happened, and Dowling lied, CNET News reports.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who spent much of last fall declaring the search engine unaffected by Wall Street's crisis, has admitted that the company is "not immune." But is he being honest about its plight?

Something's going on at Apple. Normally a leak-proof ship, the S.S. Steve Jobs has been taking on rumors of layoffs. The latest: Cuts in Mac hardware and software units, says a tipster:

The US government has released "numbers" and "statistics" about the month of February, and how it went for us, the American people, in terms of "jobs." It went poorly.

Will the bad news for America never cease? CNN has gone and canceled its highest-rated Daily Show ripoff incongruously hosted by a mediocre standup comedian, "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News."