The rumors appear to be true: Newsweek will amputate up to one million copies from its 2.6 million circulation, according to Wall Street Journal sources, and no fewer than 500,000. There will be an unknown number of layoffs, announced Thursday, to be achieved through voluntary buyouts like the 111 from last spring. But the biggest change at the 73-year-old magazine: It's going to become a whole lot more like Washington Post Co. sibling Slate, with contrarian, gimmicky or otherwise grabby headlines that wouldn't be out of place on Digg.

With camera crews staking out space outside Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters, some employees are striking back, uploading photos of the TV reporters to Flickr before the sluggish old media can get their broadcasts together. And that's part of the big story.

Where are laid-off Yahoos drinking away their sorrows? Some in San Francisco, where Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator is located, have congregated at Hotel Utah, a bar South of Market known for its live music. I called the bar and bought them a round of shots — the least I could do after all the fine, fine tips Yahoo employees have provided me over the years. The Brickhouse office will close at the end of the year, one told me. (Photo via 7x7)

With 1,500 employees gone today, Yahoo has surely hit bottom. The company's third act begins today — either an amazing rebirth, a disappearance into Microsoft, or a slow grind into irrelevance. How did those become its options?

Open bars are de riguer at media parties, and they're just about the only fringe benefit of working in this godforsaken industry. But what happens when the parties themselves start to disappear, like what's happening this holiday season? NO MORE FREE BOOZE! Portfolio's Mixed Media reports that there is a new group called "ASSME: the American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites"—which I guess I should probably join—that will carry on the noble tradition of an open bar in season where everyone else is a god-damned Scrooge. If you're laid-off and broke, you can still keep on drinking—at least for one magical night.

A source has given us the names of some of the high-profile employees who are (alleged) victims of today's layoffs at NPR. If true, it's apparent that NPR definitely wasn't sparing anyone just because they had longevity. The names—including two former hosts of All Things Considered—and the company's internal memo to employees, below [UPDATED below]:

Five years ago, National Public Radio got a donation of more than $200 million from McDonald's fortune widow Joan Kroc. So you'd think they'd be set for a while, money-wise. But the economy sucks and it's a safe bet that individual donations to public radio are plummeting. We heard rumors of layoffs this morning, and now it appears that they're true [UPDATE: it's official], and at least two shows are dying:

Yahoo has a strict set of rules to follow in layoffs: No small talk. Get to the point. Don't own the employee's feelings. Did Jerry Yang, the stumbling Internet company's cloddish founder-CEO, follow them in his latest all-hands memo?

Everything takes forever at Yahoo, the once high-flying, now famously sluggish Internet giant. Today's layoffs of 1,500 employees have been expected for months. And yet the strange thing is so many Yahoos seem unprepared.

Just about every media company, from us (small) to Time Inc. (big) to many others of varying sizes, shapes, and predilections have been laying people off lately. Because everything is terrible, especially the prospects of media employment! Still, we don't want to be perceived as negative. So we've assembled a roundup of the major media companies that haven't had any big layoffs throughout this new depression, and analyzed why they've been so fortunate. Praise them:

A tipster tells us that National Public Radio "just began first wave of layoffs and show cancellations this morning." Really? If you know more, email us.

Yahoo isn't firing people en masse — it's "getting fit." That noisome euphemism for today's layoffs of 1,500 people must have hissed forth from the brain of some overpaid management consultant. Likewise for pages upon pages of instructions on how to sack employees — which Valleywag has obtained.

Yahoo hasn't been able to do anything right lately. Why should Wednesday's job cuts be any different?

Viacom, the parent company of MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon (among others), recently laid off 7% of their staff. That is 850 people, folks! But apparently, Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami doesn't think it's any reason to cancel Christmas, hosting a party for a chosen few— but Viacom's employee party was officially taken away this year due to lack of funds. This, of course, really pisses off the uninvited. Memo follows.

Remember Josh Persky, the unemployed Wall Streeter who used up most of his 15 minutes back in June when he took to the streets with a "MIT Grad For Hire" sandwich board around his neck? Good news! He's landed a job! "After 11-odd months, plenty of interviews and many a TV appearance, the stunt resulted in a job at Weiser LLP, an accounting firm." Is this a sign the worst is over? Not really, but you're welcome to use it to cheer yourself amid the reports today of political corruption, stock losses, health epidemics and whatnot. [PEHub via Clusterstock]

Rolling Stone just laid off several more staff, including Online Editor Kyle Anderson, a tipster informs us. Other casualties include another editor, an assistant and a fact-checker. The cuts come one month after Wenner Media shed online, marketing and advertising staff, plus the entire offices in San Francisco and Detroit. They pave the way, we're guessing, for CEO Jann Wenner's exciting new RollingStone.com revamp, for which he's just hired a "Chief Digital Officer" from — wait for it — Reader's Digest, that bastion of online innovation. Steve Schwartz's stodgy pedigree should fit in well with Rolling Stone's steady slide deeper into irrelevance, and with old-man Wenner's vision of the internet as the place where that process can continue, only faster:

Just last month, Fortune reported on how investors are still bullish on green technology. And there's plenty in its pages about the bright future of online media. But Fortune's accountants must not read the magazine! Fortune has laid off two reporters on the cleantech beat, and all but one of its New York- and San Francisco-based online reporters, who wrote primarily for the magazine's website.

Canceling year-end parties is a hot holiday trend. But Yahoo executives, even as they prepared to put 1,500 employees on the street this week, greenlighted a bash for the troubled Web giant which took place Saturday. The theme: gambling. Appropriate!

Our (self-described) "ruthless" overlord Nick Denton has gone on record predicting "a decline of up to 40% in advertising spending during this cycle." Thousands of media jobs have already been lost due to low ad revenues, and major ad agencies are predicted to be making large layoffs in January. And, of course, everyone is "terrified" that the collapse of the auto industry will hammer the ad industry in its wake. So how do the newly-released forecasts for ad spending next year look? Pretty optimistic, all things considered:

"The media industries have shed more than 30,000 jobs in 2008, according to an Ad Age analysis of Department of Labor employment statistics and news reports." [Ad Age]