Sometimes the cheapest laughs are still the most satisfying. [Neatorama via raincoaster]

I'm not saying gaming news should become as mature a genre of journalism as politics, business, and world news. It's still a new field and will always be as subjective as covering music or film, with the accompanying celebrity culture. But now that women outnumber men in online gaming, party games like Rock Band appeal to both sexes, and casual games (popular among women and adults) are the fastest-growing segment of the gaming industry, gaming journalism should be an all-inclusive genre. Why does it still pander to a core audience of straight young males with outdated misogynistic material, to the boredom and frustration of all of us who can get laid outside of World of Warcraft?

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.

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.

"The Sunday Times inadvertently ran an article at the weekend that plagiarised ... a list, '100 Reasons You're Still Single,' that appeared is US pop culture Radar magazine last September." [Media Guardian]

Portfolio magazine takes diversification to a new extreme: The mag leads January's issue with Robert Reich's admonition to "get corporate money out of politics" since companies often "set the agenda" and "pour millions of dollars into the system." Flip to the back pages, and veteran business journalist Roger Lowenstein is slamming a book on responsible investing with the argument that corporate "donations seem too small to encourage any meaningful and lasting shifts in government policy."

• Otherwise levelheaded Owen Wilson and scientologist Will Smith are being "driv[en] ... crazy" by Men's Vogue, which totally promised them the cover. [Daily News]

Oh, cute! The New Yorker is having a contest where you can create a modern version of Eustace Tilley, that stuffy ascot-wearing dandy from their first cover who has been peering at us through his monocle ever since! Tilley was created as an "ironic" character, they explain. As it never fails to surprise, "The New Yorker was launched as a gossipy, facetious weekly for in-the-know Manhattanites, a sort of Jazz-age Spy." (Oh...really?) Anyone can play, anyone can win! But can anyone really beat R. Crumb's interpretation? [New Yorker contest]

The former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker (let's not mention the now-silent Talk) is to receive a lifetime achievement award from her magazine industry peers. Intelligencer's harsh conclusion: that the 54-year-old magazine legend is "at that point in her career when the final retrospective is in order".

Divorced magazine publisher Jack Kliger got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, speaking coach Amy Griggs, according to Jeff Bercovici at Mixed Media. Here's the 60-year-old Hachette Filipacchi boss, who runs a stable of magazines including 'Elle' and 'Premiere', between Griggs and his daughter, at a party in 2006. Apropos of nothing, after the jump, a blind item from Page Six, from three years ago.

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.

Among the new shows for spring, you can catch ABC's new sitcom, Cashmere Mafia, in which Lucy Liu plays Mia, a stylish Manhattan magazine editor. Who sounds much like a character from NBC's new show, Lipstick Jungle, starring Brooke Shields. The novel concept that women can achieve power and independence through magazine layout must simply be in the air—two great television minds influenced by the same muse! Of course, this being television, let's be sensible: two networks came simultaneously to a tired cliché of girlish career ambition which has historically produced semi-decent ratings. How tired? Despite Darren Star's affection for the publishing world (besides 'Mafia,' he's also got a pilot in the works about a book publicist called "Literary Superstar"), it's been a long time since magazines were the pinnacle of real-life occupational glamour. And how many other TV shows have been based on the exact same premise over the last couple of decades or so? Quite a few!

When Portfolio lost Gabe Sherman to the New Republic, the troubled Conde Nast business magazine claimed the young reporter would remain as a contributing editor. (At this point, is anybody not a contributing editor to Joanne Lipman's free-spending title?) Portfolio, which has lost a slew of writers despite lavish contracts, seemed to save face, at a price. Which would make it embarrassing if, as we're hearing, Portfolio's golden boy hadn't in fact come to terms. Some magazines are so toxic that they can't even pay people to do nothing. Hear anything?

The world's biggest fag rag, Playgirl, is planning a "Scenesters of New York" issue. In talks to be the centerfold is Randy Jones, best known as the original cowboy of The Village People and owner of the most obviously dyed moustache since Saddam Hussein's. If Playgirl's few remaining female readers haven't realized the beefcake magazine has been taken over by the gays, they will now. A rep for Playgirl notes that Jones has "an amazing body". Leotard Fantastic is apparently not in consideration for a spread.

Bid adieu to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's Blueprint magazine, according to a memo just sent and to Fishbowlny. Apparently no one read the thing. Not surprising, considering its title, which always invoked to us an awkward how-to-be-fulfilled guide for the 25-45 architect set, rather than the "fresh, fun guide to personal style" it purportedly was. A memo sent to employees this morning says the last standalone issue will be next year's "January/February" issue. "There will be a reduction in staff associated with not publishing Blueprint as a full-frequency magazine, but we expect to re-assign a core team of employees to existing businesses and new projects at MSLO." Lucky ducks! "We believe Blueprint will be more sustainable if leveraged as part of the established Martha Stewart Weddings franchise. Both appeal to women at a similar life stage and we believe this strategy will allow us to better take advantage of the synergistic relationship between the two publications." Synergistic! Leveraged! Sustainable! Franchise! Ah, the empty marketing buzzwords used to confuse the recipients of bad news.

Time Inc. seems to have many many job openings all of a sudden! The company is looking for a chief marketing officer along with sales, marketing and finance staffers. In the past week, its magazine properties (especially Essence, People.com and Real Simple) have been advertising heavily—for executive assistants, ad salespeople, event planners, and online production folks. Fortune just launched their redesign, and CNN/Money.com is pouring money into online videos, according to Crain's. Given that it's a stressy time for publishers, and also the irritating fact that where there's a hire, there's often a fire, we're wondering if these titles are planning to balance their budgets by slashing some of their print and newsroom-only support staff in the next month? Could be! Hey, everyone else is doing it! We're all ears!

Esquire readers are older and poorer than those of five other, less classy men's mags. The Esquire reader's median household income is a pathetic $53,783, compared to $76,865 for Men's Journal and $65,614 for Maxim. It seems that pictures of ladies in their underwear are somehow more popular with affluent young men than George Clooney! [Folio]

"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?

This newsstand, in the 23rd Street 6 station, proves that Psychology Today has mad street cred. You ain't shit, American Psychologist. [SilverJacket]