"I know a fair number of people who work for the firms that are imploding on Wall Street. When I see them, should I ignore the issue or say something, like: 'I'm sorry things are so bad at your company. It must be stressful for you?'" Philip Galanes has a few suggestions. [NYT]

We hear that there are layoffs at Forbes.com today—according to one source, the "entire staffs" of the Forbes Auto and Forbes Traveler online divisions have been cut. If you have any more information, email us.

Chief executive ponytail-twirler Jonathan Schwartz is annoyingly vague in this San Jose Mercury News interview. Got more details on Sun's layoffs? Please send 'em in. Neither one of us has a job to protect anymore, so we might as well blog the facts. (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)

♦ Peter Chernin, Rupert Murdoch's right-hand at News Corp., may be planning to depart the company in the near future. [LAT]
♦ 60 Minutes has snagged the first interview with Barack Obama. [THR]
♦ WWD has a roundup of how magazines will fare overall in 2008. Most of the news is depressing, yes, but there are a couple of bright spots: Elle and Men's Journal reported 3 percent increases in ad pages. [WWD]
♦ You knew this one was coming: Political statistics star Nate Silver is reportedly shopping a pair of books to publishers. [NYO]

It's a grim day for employees of Citigroup as they hear more about the beleaguered bank's plans to cut costs and slash another 10,000 jobs. But Citi director Dick Parsons doesn't want to see anyone to give up hope. He issued a memo to company employees earlier this morning and urged them to "keep the faith." The memo's below.

We asked earlier for tips about layoffs at Time Inc.'s Essence, and have since heard about 12 people were let go — around 10 from marketing and business and two from editorial. A shared services group on the same floor, which services several magazines, lost four more. It's been nearly a month now of watching Time Inc. layoffs unfurl, and we can't help but wonder if the magazine group might not have spared survivors some pain and the company some bad publicity by executing a little faster.

Entertainment Weekly took its turn in the Time Inc. layoff machine today with 15 editorial layoffs, according the the Observer [UPDATE: Another source tells us the number is 22, including the research chief, two librarians, and "a bunch of AEs"]. And they didn't even offer anyone a chance to volunteer for buyouts—they just got fired. We also hear that Essence may be having its layoffs today, too. If you have more details, email us.

It was another roller coaster of a day on Wall Street. After falling more than 400 points this morning, the Dow rebounded in the last three hours of trading, closing up 552 points, making it the third best single-session point gain in history. (Both the S&P and Nasdaq were up more than 6 percent.) Don't let the momentary boost get your hopes up: The outlook is still pretty bleak, as the hedge fund kings who turned up on Capitol Hill today made clear. And there's always the stream of layoffs to remind us. Dow Jones said today it plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees, the law firm of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe let 40 lawyers go, National Geographic cut staff, Entertainment Weekly dismissed 25 staffers, and one in ten employees at Morgan Stanley were given notice today. Any good news? Not really. But Dick Fuld didn't seem too depressed when he was spotted buying some yogurt and granola for breakfast this morning, if that's any consolation.

We hear that National Geographic just laid off 13 people on the magazine staff—including a cartographer. We also hear that they are planning 5%-10% cuts across the entire company. This is bad. What will become of the cartographer? When a magazine cartographer can't get a job at National Geographic, the rest of the magazine cartography market must look especially barren. If you know more about the layoffs, email us. [UPDATE: We hear that the mag has "over a dozen" total cartographers on staff. And further, "They did similar 'restructuring' in the 1990's and laid off lots of people, but they were quite generous with severance and benefits."]

♦ The Times has the skinny on "Martin Eisenstadt," the supposed McCain consultant who leaked info to the press. (He's an aspiring filmmaker, not surprisingly.) In the meantime, MSNBC's retracted its story. [NYT, AP]
♦ You might be enjoying CW's Stylista, but the ratings thus far haven't been especially encouraging. [NYO]
♦ Two new cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, will join Saturday Night Live beginning this weekend. [NYT]
♦ Showtime is developing an hour-long show by Stan Lee about a gay superhero. [Variety]

Current, the bizarre TV channel co-founded by Al Gore, laid off 60 staff last night. Supposedly the hippies in the San Francisco headquarters office are being shoved aside in favor of the bloodsuckers in Los Angeles. But even the survivors better watch their backs, because a company statement makes it sound like they might eventually be replaced by the robots and RSS feeds that fueled Current's awful, awful election-night coverage:

Chris Alden, CEO of blog-software maker Six Apart, understands his business so well that he posted his own internal memo before any pesky gossip bloggers could extract it from his loquacious employees. He's also sensible enough to admit that there's more to blame for the layoffs than the economy — like the integration of recent acquisitions. He also snuck in a well-disguised hint that the company is cash-flow positive. Well played, Chris! The company is laying off 8 percent of its 200-plus workforce, and shifting more resources into its services business. Cofounder Ben Trott is taking a bigger role running Six Apart's blog-hosting business. Alden and other top managers are taking a 15 percent paycut. The only disappointment: That the company didn't kill off Vox, its interminably boring free personal blogging service.

Sometimes, don't you wish you didn't have to get out of bed every morning, and could just wander the city all day, window shopping and drinking at whatever goddamned hour you choose? Time Out has a roundup about where recently laid-off media and finance proles go to drink, and they featured our former writer, the totally unjustly fired Moe. Look how happy and healthy she looks in the photo, due not to some South Beach vacation but from being away from the cancerous glow of her computer screen and the repetitive-stress injuries of typeblogging. It's almost enough to make us want to get fired.As Moe tells Time Out about her dream job:

This just in: Current TV's director of public relations sent us an email designed to be printed in its entirety. (Thanks for that. Since Valleywag fired everyone else, I spend way too much time editing.) Current didn't just cut staff, they reshuffled a couple dozen employees. Instead of the economy, Current blames "a new, innovative programming strategy." That's gotta make everyone feel better. A tipster tells us, "The few spared [in San Francisco] are being made to choose between unemployment or a move to L.A." Here's the statement:

A quarter of the 50-something employees in Wired.com's San Francisco newsroom are gone, a source tells us — and with them, the bubbly delusion that Wired would not just report on the transformation of media by technology, but be a part of the revolution as well. The cuts hit Wired's tech team heavily, though some writers and editors also got pink slips. (CNET reports that 3 out of 28 editorial staffers are gone, but a Wired insider says that the actual number of edit jobs cut is at least six.)Also gone: Kourosh Karimkhany, the VP of corporate development for Wired.com's parent company, CondéNet. (The magazine is run separately by Condé Nast, a sister company to CondéNet.) Karimkhany did the deals to buy Reddit, an online news-discussion site; Ars Technica, a rival tech blog; and Webmonkey, a Web-technology how-to site. With no further deals planned, there wasn't much reason to keep him on, we hear. (Photo by Jackson West)

Conde Nast has laid off dozens of people today from CondeNet, the company's internet division. We hear from one source that 60 people were let go this morning, most in tech, some in marketing. We also hear that an additional 20 staffers were fired from "Conde Connect," the company's internal intranet division. Conde itself hasn't released specific numbers, but these are part of the 5% across-the-board cuts the company ordered two weeks ago. If you have info, email us.

Current, the cable channel and user-generated-video website backed by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore, is laying people off. "My wife works in the LA office (at least for now!)," emails a tipster. "At least 10 gone from there...." No word from Current's San Francisco headquarters yet, but you know where to send it. Update: A tipster says 32 have been cut from the San Francisco office. "'Bloodbath' is the word being used!" he adds.

It was another down day on Wall Street. The Dow fell 176 points, or 2 percent, and both the S&P and Nasdaq shed 2.2 percent. Naturally, a handful of companies announced a round of fresh layoffs: As many as 60 employees of Condé Nast's Internet division were reportedly let go; an estimated 20 percent of CurrentTV's staff were given notice; the law firm of White & Case announced plans to shed 3 percent of its staff; and Time Inc. bosses in New York are now reportedly planning to lay off lots of European staffers, too. Oh, and don't bother looking for a job if you've already lost yours: Online job sites are reporting that new listings have hit a new low.

Just yesterday, we were hearing gossip about how Condé Nast, the magazine publisher, had spared Wired while slashing Portfolio, its troubled business magazine. Not so: Wired.com is having layoffs due to "unexpected cutbacks," Silicon Alley Insider reports. No details on numbers yet; the publication is having a conference call to discuss the cuts now. Wired.com, which is managed separately from the magazine, had gone on an acquisition spree of late, having bought Reddit, Ars Technica, and Webmonkey recently. It also had plans to resuscitate HotWired, a '90s-era Web property which popularized the banner ad; those may now be on hold. Update: More details have arrived on the cuts. A quarter of the 50 or so staff in Wired.com's San Francisco newsroom are gone.

The Post is hearing rumors that Morgan Stanley plans to lay off 10 percent of the company's 50,000 workforce on Thursday and that "those given the ax shouldn't expect a very generous severance package." [NYP via Dealbreaker]