Harper's Magazine publisher John R. "Rick" MacArthur is a man who was born wealthy and has used some of his wealth to publish a great magazine. That's good. Where he pays his staff notoriously meager salaries and fights against their efforts to form a union. That's bad. Rick MacArthur, though, has one overriding redeeming aspect: he is fucking hilariously dumb when he talks about the internet.

I suppose it was inevitable. Jessica Simpson—like Demi Moore, Britney Spears, and every other female celebrity who has ever been pregnant—is on the cover of a magazine naked, pregnant, and posed with one hand on her boobs and the other on her belly. The pictures appeared online yesterday. Aren't we sick of this pose, yet?

Oh, how awkward. Not only did Time put an Asian guy on the cover of their "Yo Decido" cover about Latino voters, but the Asian guy in question is actually a member of the press. OC Weekly's Michelle Woo reports,

Big new story hit GQ's website today: "The Insane True Story of the Zanesville Zoo Escape." Big new story hit Esquire's website today: "The Most Dramatic Story of the Year: Inside the Massacre at the Zanesville Zoo." HEY, WAIT A SECOND. Did someone fuck up here?

This week, Time Inc. announced that it will be closing down its three year-old Maghound service—billed at its launch as "The Netflix of magazines." Seemed like a decent idea at the time. Turned out not to be. The Netflix business model is not as flexible as previously suspected. In reality, a business plan that reads "The Netflix of [anything new]" is a signal to run in the opposite direction.

Complex magazine features Lana Del Rey, last week's sacrificial lamb, on the cover of their February/March issue and she looks exactly as you would expect her to look. She is a sexy, wet, pouty vintage movie poster. Like a faded French ad you would put in your bathroom if you were 21. The image is actually a great visual response to last week's issues; it is a strong look-at-me-I'm-still-standing-despite-all-you-mean-'ol-raindrops-pouring-down-on-my-talentless-parade, statement.

Crocheted Etsy woman Zooey Deschanel was spotted this week "hop[ping] around with an adorable bunny bag."

As the recession and the popularity of the internet ground away at the traditional magazine world like the opposing teeth of a hungry beaver, everyone has had to make adjustments. Some had layoffs. Other cut back on pages. Still others turned to outrageous promotional gimmicks. But Ladies Home Journal may have hit on the most transformative idea of all: just have readers write a bunch of crap and then put that crap in the magazine instead of whatever other crap your own writer were writing, in the past.

Tyler Brule is the publisher of high-fashion design magazine Wallpaper and of Monocle, that beacon of "lifestyle sensuality and gaywad uptightness" that could be viewed as either the world's most pretentious or (incorrectly) most inspiring magazine. It sure is something. Though not a lifestyle magazine.

You can't miss BetaBeat's profile of Kirk and Nate Mueller. They are twee twin twentysomething designers, omg. They design all of the iPad things, OMG. They refer to themselves as "living decorative objects," ZOMG.

If you're like us, you spent a lot of time this year reading words. But which words were the best words? (Not "amazeballs," for sure.) Here, each Gawker staffer recommends the best things he or she read this year—books, articles, blogs, comics and more.

So, you'd like to advertise in an iPad magazine? Ha ha, sucker. Sure, you can buy an ad, right in an interactive version of a fancy Condé Nast lifestyle glossy. But you're going to pay through the nose with surcharges, because you're a mark.

Silver spoon-sucking Trump in-law Jared Kushner already owns the New York Observer, poorly. Now, the plucky young would-be mogul has his eye on a new crowd of readers: rich annoying idiots!

No longer content to obsess about the genital structures between your legs, Cosmopolitan magazine has now uncovered an "above-the-waist G-spot" in females, an "eye erection" capacity in males, and a secret penis in the tip of a man's nose. Is this a fetish or something? An evolution of acrotomophilia, perhaps?

Now, we don't want to alarm you, but it's time you learned the truth. Magazines sometimes touch up photos of celebrities. I know. I know! It's shocking to think that Redbook might not be the absolute model of a journalistic commitment to the truth. But there it is. And here's a good way to deal with it.

In your mordant Monday media column: NotW readers disappear, newspapers must advertise, Keith Gessen's pale jail tale, the Tribune Co. screws more shareholders, in-house news, and your headline fuckup of the day.

For its December 5 issue, Time Magazine is running a cover story in the U.S. titled "Why Anxiety Is Good for You." They thought you should know that your frazzled, overworked or underemployed, recession-tempered emotional state will eventually produce personal benefits. You just have to be patient.

In your tricky Tuesday media column: how to get fired at the Washington Post, NPR listeners are just so ugh, Lane Brown to New York mag, Michelangelo Signorile to HuffPo, and a shocking report about women in media.

In your merciless Monday media column: Bloomberg rules, Romenesko is back, the endless "off the record" debate, David Frum vs. Fox News, and Luke Russert's all grown up.

Ever since the mediapocalypse that occurred simultaneously with the overall economy-pocalypse, the magazine industry has been, shall we say, not at its best. The financially weaker magazines died off at an alarming rate; the survivors, shaky or not, assumed that they were the strong ones, destined to emerge from the hard times with renewed vigor, ready to soar to ever greater heights as the wounded economy began its healing process.