A long Times profile yesterday of Conde Nast chairman Si Newhouse describes him as a shy, unassuming man who putters around the office quietly in an old sweatshirt. This can lead to a pleasant work environment, but also some surprises: "Despite the influence he wields, Mr. Newhouse so defers to his editors and dislikes confrontation that a number of them have said over the years that their first indication of trouble came when he fired them." Notably, the piece gives no indication at all that Conde Nast is nervous about the struggles of its $100 million business magazine, Portfolio. But does that mean its editor, Joanne Lipman, is really safe?

Nina Garcia, the erstwhile Project Runway judge and former Elle fashion director, is truly a force of nature. We told you last week that during her final months at Elle, Garcia was getting paid a hefty fee for making public appearances for Anne Klein. But a source tells us that the Anne Klein endorsement, an angry publisher, and Garcia's own strange sense of ethics helped get her booted from Elle in the first place!

Did you know Frances Bean Cobain, Kurt's surprisingly well-adjusted daughter, is a "summer aide" at Rolling Stone? She is! Also, she's wayyy too rock and roll for the anal-retentive offices of the Wenner title. Insiders bitched to Page Six, "she doesn't get coffee for anyone . . . calls in sick all the time and wears funny outfits." First of all? She's 15. And second? Something tells me Evan Springsteen, Max Spielberg and Gus Wenner weren't fetching too many lattes last summer, either. Anyway, here are some conversation tips, courtesy a February article in People, in case she comes to collect your drink order:

Relaunching your niche magazine in this miserable market and dismal culture? Get legendary designer George Lois on board! He cannibalized his old Esquire work for Radar, and now he's lending his talents to pretend Harvard Alum mag 02138 (can't believe we got the name of the mag right on the first try, sigh). If it wasn't late Friday afternoon we'd mock up a funny photoshop here. But now YOU CAN'T MAKE US. Anyway Lois is still awesome and cantankerous so it will probably be good, unlike the rest of that miserable magazine. The relaunch cover story? "The Harvard 100, the magazines annual ranking of the top 100 living alumni. " [NYP]

Julia Allison posted an email conversation with the editor of Wired, the magazine that, in case you missed it, put her on the cover this month and thus made her famous for being famous for nothing. Ever the crafty self-promoter, Allison asked if her cover was as good for Wired as it was for her: "I hope - that as time goes on, you'll be proud you took the leap," the Time Out New York dating columnist wrote. Remember aspiring fameballs: follow up is key. Wired editor Chris Anderson replied, "I feel great about this one." So sweet. In another moment protocelebrities should study, Allison makes a thinly-veiled pitch for some kind of Wired writing gig by pretending she's tired of all the self-promotion (for real this time!) and wants to get back to her "roots" (what??) as a writer:

"It is, unfortunately, not enough to be honest in this city," writes 20-year-old NYU student Jess Roy on her blog Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff. Meet Jess: she wants to make it in the New York media jungle, went to some annoying-sounding literary parties, and is now escaping to Paris for a few months. And she's feisty! "I will not give blowjobs for bylines. I will not laugh at peoples' unfunny jokes because I want them to be impressed by me. I will not become someone else so that I can be absorbed into this elite, nefarious world where people trade intellect like currency." Oh, but there's more, written for the Daily Intel. After the jump, a harrowing tale that includes "n+1 interns, underage Lolitas in slutty dresses... sucking lollipops and carrying six-packs of Blue Moon."

Amy Sacco, the former NYC nightlife queen whose reign on top is now (we believe) pretty much over, still has a bunch of fans at BlackBook magazine. In a new interview-one that describes Sacco in glowing terms that would have been more appropriate three years ago-she talks up her Bungalow 8 club in London. Sure, it had a rough start, and hasn't gotten the greatest reviews, but she points out that "we have a hundred more bathrooms than in New York, so, fabulous!" Ha, [cocaine joke]. But what do Sacco's customers in London have to say in their own reviews?

"The feeling at 4 Times Square is that [Si] Newhouse isn't retiring anytime soon... But those close to Newhouse have heard of a possible succession plan that involves the creation of a committee of several top Newhouse family members." [WWD]

Vogue has always acted disdainful of reality television. When it became clear the fashion title had passed on something big with Project Runway, Vogue editor Anna Wintour sniffed that her magazine "is not in the business of making entertainment out of the struggles of new designers." Fine. How, then, to explain Vogue's seeming reversal, its participation in an online reality show about the travails of three young models? With denial. "This isn't a reality show," cries the trailer. Other shows are "just amateurs live" Vogue publisher Tom Florio told the Wall Streer Journal, while this one is co-produced by modeling agency IMG, which makes it totally legitimate. The show's tagline is more honest, but still rubbishes the rest of the genre: "Reality TV just got real." Well, at least someone has. Preview video after the jump.

Earlier today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that it's cutting almost 200 jobs-8% of its total workforce-due to "tough economic times." This afternoon, the Wall Street Journal sent out a staff memo saying that the paper is eliminating 50 editing jobs for "strategic" reasons. Less than an hour later, word came that Greg Osberg, president and publisher of Newsweek, is stepping down with no clear successor. (Newsweek editor Jon Meacham's crusade to appeal to the youth apparently hasn't taken effect quickly enough for Osberg, a digital advocate). This has been an extraordinarily bad day for print media by any standards. But take a look at the chart above-an illustration of newspaper industry stock prices over the past five years. There will be many more bad days to come.

The business of selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door is surprisingly shady. It consists largely of crews of young people-some under 18-recruited by (often) criminal characters who haul them around the country in vans, releasing them only to make their way through neighborhoods, using any lies necessary to tug the heartstrings of people enough to get them to buy something. Then all the kids are rounded up again, given their meager cut of the profits, and they all go do drugs. Sometimes they rape people, or drive off cliffs. The Houston Press just put out a monster investigation of the industry, and it shows a long but clear path from the offices of Conde Nast out to the wild kids hustling in the hinterlands. And there are some true horror stories:

The government of France has officially forfeited all the liberal cred it's earned over the past 500 years: yesterday, French prosecutors raided the office of an auto magazine, confiscated its computers and files, and arrested a reporter for the crime of publishing a scoop. A scoop about autos, the subject of the magazine! Because in France, freedom of the press must take a back seat to the concerns of the almighty Renault corporation.

Vanity Fair writer Alex Shoumatoff got himself arrested for crashing Bohemian Grove, a private men's club in northern California for the upper echelon of the rich and powerful. He was there to spy on the three-week camp they hold every July, where said rich and powerful relax while living in tents in their private woods. (Nixon was a member, but called it "most faggy goddamn thing that you would ever imagine.") The backstory on the weird club, plus the reason for the trespassing and arrest?

Has Second Life, the weird, clunky virtual world, ever been good for anything except strange computer sex and time-wasting? For about a year there, you couldn't pick up a magazine without seeing 2L touted as the next big thing for business. For business! Yes, why wouldn't an imaginary land packed with flying monsters and huge selections of virtual penises become corporate America's preferred communications medium? Christ. Lots of the hype was the fault of BusinessWeek, which bought into it with wide-eyed enthusiasm. And the magazine is still trying to get your employer to drag you off to a fantasy computer island for fun team-building exercises:

Wondering what to get for the outraged liberal person in your life? Perhaps this person already has a Mother Jones subscription and Arianna Huffington's book and no more room for bumper stickers on the back of their Prius or whatever? Help keep their anger at Daily Kos-commenter levels with a reproduction of the New Yorker's offensive/stupid/ corrosive/overcriticized/whatever Barack and Michelle Obama caricature cover! Prices at the magazine's store range from $29.95 for note cards for bitter poor white Hillary Clinton supporters to $280 for a large framed cover, appropriate for the caviar communists who run Hollywood (or, more likely, for those people's decorators). Give the gift that keeps on feeding extremism, all year 'round! [New Yorker Store]

Brangelina spawn photo war update! We hear that Getty is scheduled to do the photo shoot of Angelina Jolie's new twins on Monday. Knox and Vivienne are officially entering the celebrity media machine, and it's about time! The twist, of course, is that the bidding war between OK! and People for the rights to the photos is still ongoing. The price was hovering between $11 and $12 million this morning, and we hear it hasn't been decided yet. We know you are dying to know who will walk away the victor. A speculative look, and a guess:

A-list stars are extremely selective about how they're portrayed in pictures. They routinely have specific language in their contracts for movies and photo shoots dictating just how much flesh can be shown, and in what way. But magazines have figured out a way around this: get one of the world's most prominent photographers to do the shoot, and hey, the stars let it all hang out! New York got Lindsay Lohan to strip for Bert Stern, the photographer who once shot Marilyn Monroe in the same poses. And Vanity Fair used Annie Leibovitz's cachet to goad the young Miley Cyrus into a creepy come-hither pose. And now, sadly, supermodel and man-curse Gisele Bundchen has fallen victim to the same trend. Oh no!

Mostly angry, and run next to the self-parody pictured at left. "No story has apparently come close to sparking such a response." [WWD]

New Yorker editor David Remnick went on The Situation Room today to answer to Wolf Blitzer about his magazine's ridiculous Obama cover. "There are gonna be a lot of people who aren't going to be sophisticated New Yorker readers," Wolf asserted, "who are going to look at this cover" and assume it is an accurate portrayal of reality. Remnick—typical hate-monger!—says this is condescending. In the attached clip, watch Wolf claim that the cover could've appeared on "a neo-Nazi magazine." Context is meaningless! No one gets anything anymore! Remnick says some crazy thing about being Colbert in Print, but no one gets jokes without studio audiences to explain what is supposed to be funny. (After the jump, in a calmer setting, New Yorker political writer Hendrick Hertzberg holds up the cover and grins. He almost giggles!)

Hey, Julia Allison's on the cover of once-important lifestyle rag Wired! Ms. Allison, who's moved beyond the "dating columnist/celeb talking head" thing to become a noted dater-of-rich-nerds, is the subject of yet another of those interminable stories about becoming Internet Famous in Three Easy Steps. We haven't read the piece, except that we already did in a different magazine like a month ago. More importantly: editors and contributors who perhaps have some doubt as to your value as a cover model may undermine the honor with unflattering photoshop work and coverlines. ("Even if you're nobody," eh?) Just ask right-wing comedienne Ann Coulter. And consider yourself warned.