Richard Beckman—formerly head of the Conde Nast Media Group, which handles the company's biggest and most exclusive advertisers—is now the President and C.E.O. of Conde's Fairchild Fashion Group. That's a demotion. Backstory:

Last week we asked you, the media freelancers, to tell us how long you're waiting to get paid. Scads responded! Deadbeat villains, prepare to be outed.

UH OH: Complex magazine put Kim Kardashian on its cover this month, but it forgot to Photoshop one of its images of her (left) until Bucky Turco caught it. Huzzah for real womanhood! [Animal NY]

In your "not really spring" Tuesday column: Obama to meet "bloggers"(??), journalists die while nobody notices, newspapers scrounge for ideas, and Eliot Spitzer's a media darling!:

• Hachette is looking to sell a big bunch of magazines, including Road & Track, Car & Driver, American Photo, Boating, Cycle World, Sound & Vision, and Flying. Package deals available; financing not so much. [AdAge, MW]
• Dick Parsons will step down from the Time Warner board in May. [Crains]
• Time Warner is buying a stake in Ron Lauder's European TV company. [PC]
• Discovery chief David Zaslav is "cable's fastest rising star," according to Forbes. Also: You're welcome to call him "Zazz" if you'd like. [Forbes]
• More on the media tour that Eliot Spitzer has been on recently. [NYO]
• It seems the Obama administration is looking at ways to avoid the "filter of the mainstream media." That sounds familiar, doesn't it? [Politico]
• Further proof that CNBC sucks, assuming you need some. [MediaMatters]
• Barry Meyer and Alan Horn will spend two more years at Warner Bros. [THR]
• George Lopez has a new talk show on TBS. Contain your excitement. [NYT]

In your customary Monday media column: Another paper goes online-only, new magazines magically appear, a plagiarism scandal rocks Ocala, and a nice happy WSJ memo:

• You can rest easier now: Now that he's no longer planning to run for Senate, Chris Matthews has signed a new four-year contract with MSNBC. [NYT]
• Howard Dean has signed on to be a CNBC contributor. [HP]
• Major media companies are now looking for a bailout. From Google. [AdAge]
• Jay Leno's chat with Obama was his fourth most-watched show ever. [LAT]
• Some perks may be curtailed at Condé Nast. Like the one that allowed Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman to fly to Davos first-class, possibly. [NYP]
• Advance Publications is instituting mandatory 10-day furloughs and a pension freeze at nearly all of its daily papers, says Steve Newhouse. [E&P]
• Time publisher Don Fries is headed out the door. [NYP]
• NBC is very good at spinning the Times, in case you haven't noticed. [CJR]
• Knowing starring Nic Cage was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [NYDN]

In your finally Friday media column: a paltry offer for the Seattle P-I, Jake Tapper's a twit, arm fetish redux, Baba Wawa looks towards the end, and newspapers....you know:

• Further evidence CNN's Jon Klein should start polishing his resume: The network continues to trail Fox News, MSNBC, and Headline News. [Portfolio]
• Obama's performance on The Tonight Show will keep people talking for awhile (and not in a good way, clearly), but the ratings were huge. [Time, THR]
• The April issue of Portfolio is the slimmest in Condé Nast's history. [NYP]
• Charla Lawhon is stepping down as managing editor of In Style. [WWD]
• Your prayers have been answered: VH1 is reviving Behind the Music. [NYP]
• Bob Pittman says the ad industry should get a bailout, too. [Fortune]
• Fox News's Greta Van Susteren is denying her husband is a paid adviser to Sarah Palin, but she admits that he gives her advice and "helps" her. [HP]
• SpiralFrog, the glitzy music site that launched in 2006, has gone bust. [PC]
• Broadway dimmed the lights last night in honor of Natasha Richardson. [THR]

Tiniest Condé Nast magazine ever: the 106-page April Portfolio.

In your servile Thursday media column: the scoop on Steve Bartelstein, the Singapore Judiciary blows, Eric Holder's willing to help newspapers die slower, which is good, because nobody wants to pay much for one:

• Former president George W. Bush has signed a deal with Crown to publish a memoir. Rumor has it he landed a $7 million advance for the book. [AP, NYP]
• For his part, Barack Obama has two books in the works with Crown. He plans to release an abridged, youth-oriented version of Dreams From My Father as well as write a nonfiction book once he leaves office. [CBS News]
• CNBC's keeping it classy. Larry Kudlow set a dollar bill on fire today. [CJR]
• Jim Cramer is still rattling on about Jon Stewart. [Gawker]
• NBC is planning to launch a "singing competition series" that sounds a lot like—yes, you guessed it—Fox's American Idol. [THR]
• CBS is keeping Two and a Half Men on the air through 2012. [NYT]
• The finalists for the Man Booker International Prize include E. L. Doctorow, V. S. Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Mario Vargas Llosa and Alice Munro. [NYT]
• The noms for the National Magazine Awards are out. [AdAge]
• The cable channel Starz would like to remind you that it exists. [NYT]
• How screwed is the newspaper biz? Here's a pic that sums it up nicely. [BI]

If there's one thing we know, it's that readers could not possibly, under any circumstances, care less about any "award" a media outlet receives. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 National Magazine Awards nominees are here:

People managed to rush Natasha Richardson's skiing accident on the cover this week, but it also appears to have pulled a magazine no-no by promoting advertorial on the cover.

Time Inc. is planning to start charging for *some* online content at magazines like Time and Sports Illustrated this year—inevitable, but also quite possibly doomed to failure! For this reason:

OK! magazine's UK edition caught some flack from sticklers this week who objected to its "In Loving Memory" issue for someone who is, technically, alive. But no worries, her family is "OK!" with it, ha:

Rodale, publisher of Men's Health, Prevention, Running magazine, and other clean living rags, doesn't allow its employees to smoke anywhere on its property. So instead they all go smoke in the park across the street.

In your outrageously newsy Wednesday media column: a PR conspiracy theory for Us Weekly, updates on Conde Nast layoffs and Interview cheapskate-ness, Steve Bartelstein vanishes, and trade mags start wheezing:

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.

Joanne Lipman, the diva editor of Portfolio, is becoming known for her disastrous cover decisions. The worst, perhaps, involved the president and Annie Leibovitz.