When ancient and respected old magazine The Atlantic put Britney Spears on their cover for an utterly so-so story on the celebrity-industrial complex or whatever (it was OK but Rolling Stone's piece was better), everyone (i.e. us) mocked them for selling out and claimed it was a cynical ploy at boosting newsstand sales or something. Well. Mea culpa! Because if it was a cynical ploy at boosting newsstand sales, it failed miserably. "The magazine sold approximately 24,000 copies at the newsstand, some 21,000 less than March and nearly 30,000 less than its January/February issue." According to Atlantic Media president Justin Smith (the man who destroyed The Atlantic), they meant to do that.

Whenever you think you've truly gained access to an exclusive club of some sort-particularly in New York-think again, fool. There is always another inner sanctum far too exclusive to admit the likes of you. That was a great piece of wisdom passed down by Graydon Carter long ago, and confirmed in former Gawker-er Josh Stein's new article in Page Six Magazine, which takes a peek "Beyond the Velvet Rope" at the hottest spots in the hottest city where the hottest people go. And you want to know the even bigger secret? The most exclusive places in the city are just as boring as everywhere else you've ever been:

Vogue editor Anna Wintour should turn down the British medal she's being offered for several reasons. First of all because the title-Officer of the British Empire-is ridiculously outmoded. It marks the 58-year-old fashion veteran as a member of an earlier generation of Brits who still hanker pathetically for approval of the fusty home-country establishment decades after moving to the US. But most of all Wintour should be embarrassed to take an honor a rank below that of her long-time rival, editor Tina Brown. The one-time Vanity Fair editor is a Commander of the British Empire, which means she'll outrank Wintour in the ridiculous "order of preference" of English society.

BusinessWeek Magazine sure is one big hellhole, judging strictly by the internal backstabbing, sniping, and intra-office gossip wars that go on there. The latest scathing editorial criticism comes in the form of a comment on a blog interview of BW.com editor John Byrne. A helpful reader takes the opportunity to point out that Byrne's predecessor was the widely despised Kathy Rebello, infamous for once hyping stories on her own site with praise from a fake commenter. Also discussed by the angry commenter: a celebrity gossip-refugee news editor with a shelf full of Barbie dolls, and a napkin-folding Rebello underling who fetched his boss water on command (we need one of those!). The provocative comment-along with some context from a BW insider, and our request for more information-after the jump.

Page Six Magazine's Kelly Killoren Bensimon, your source for both trendsetting woman-about-town news and the latest dispatches from poverty-ravaged Africa, unspins the saga of her almost-trip to the Third World in her column this past weekend: "Last week I was supposed to go to South Africa with the group CC Africa, which has arranged safaris for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the past. I was very excited to go-I was going to help open a school there-but I missed my flight by 10 minutes!" OMG OMG what happens next? The answer will sadden you, shock you, and make you despair for the future of Africa and New York high society alike:

We're hearing something fairly horrifying — that Rolling Stone senior editor Austin Scaggs is starting a "Perez Hilton-esque" music blog for the magazine next month. It's not clear how, exactly, this new creation would ape Hilton's crude celebrity gossip site, but the initiative is said to be an outgrowth of Scaggs' own infrequent Smoking Section music news blog. Jann Wenner has approved the project, but the magazine mogul hasn't provided any budget, so "Scaggs is hiring six unpaid interns to staff the whole thing—and they have to work 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday" said our tipster. NB to desperate young intern candidates: Just launch your own music news site. You won't get to say you write for Rolling Stone, but you'll have no trouble reaching Perez Hilton quality levels, and at least you'll retain ownership in exchange for all your free labor.

Hillary Clinton wasn't the only woman to suffer an unexpected setback in the Democratic primary. Her biographer, magazine publishing doyenne Tina Brown, is left without the inauguration that would have been such a compelling finale-and recompense for the discomforts of the campaign trail. But the former Vanity Fair editor claimed to the biddies on The View this morning that Hillary's defeat gave her story a more interesting "arc"-and there may be some truth to that. The fallen Queen of Buzz identifies with the former First Lady even more than one would imagine; and a bitter-sweet ending has a certain resonance, as you'll see.

Two people sent in possible answers about who invented those matrix infographics that are so hot right now in magazines.

"Initially, the Forbes defections were confined mainly to the print magazine, but they are now spreading to the dot-com side as well." [Post]

After we linked to Vanity Fair's blog matrix graphic earlier today, our inbox filled up with links to other, similar grids. Not surprising, since the format has been around for years and has spread widely. New Republic, to take but one example, published a "Bush Apostate Matrix" earlier this week. New York runs them regularly, here's the May 19 "Approval Matrix." Where/when did the first one of these grids crawl out of the primordial media ooze? (At Spy, probably. Of course.) And is anyone keeping track of their numbers in the wild? With Google and the rest of the internet turning everyone into short-attention-span clickmonkeys, it's only a matter of time before these random-access smorgasbords steal the listicle's place in the hearts of magazine editors everywhere. UPDATE: Two possible answers on the origins of magazine grids below!

Rolling Stone, America's most frustrating magazine (yay, Matt Taibbi; boo, excruciating music coverage) has been having some trouble selling ads lately. So to help revitalize its "iconic and revolutionary brand," the magazine has slapped some of its classic covers on t-shirts. They're for sale at Macy's for $36 each. Eh, not really worth it. Oh, wait: each shirt comes with a free subscription to Rolling Stone. Eh, still. Better idea: make the magazine better so it sells. "The new collection of Rolling Stone tees appeals to today's cross-channel lifestyle, bringing together the influences of fashion, music, celebrity and entertainment," says a Macy's exec. "Macy's is honored to be exclusively bringing back these covers in a new, wearable way." OH NOW I GET IT. [via Ad Age]

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the domestic queen's massive publishing and television conglomerate, has just announced that its CEO, Susan Lyne, has (ahem) "stepped down." Replacing Lyne will be two co-CEOs—an equivocation that often signals that a company was not well prepared for an executive transition. Lyne came on as head of the company when Martha Stewart went to jail in 2004, and has presided over a big drop in MSLO's stock price. But while her departure may have been inevitable, it's not necessarily a productive move. The magazine industry is in an irreversible decline, and no number of firings will change that fact. Sorry!

The plan to turn the LA Times' Sunday magazine over to the paper's business staff, ending its four-decade run as an editorial product, is now a reality. LAT editor Russ Stanton acknowledged that he didn't like the idea, but said that the paper's budget issues make holding onto editorial control of the magazine "impossible." So who is the Tribune Company's leading candidate to take charge of the troubled magazine now? The perfect choice: a host from the Home Shopping Network HSN.

Two commenters argued today that our coverage of the brewing civil war inside Hachette was way too harsh on digital VP Todd Anderman, who we dubbed a "digital dunce." Anderman, you'll recall, is said to have offended the sensibilities of deputies Joe Berean and Keith Pollock with a mind-numbingly-long series of reorganizations and content aggregation strategies. The case against Anderman as an all-thumbs manager was only cemented by his accidental big-screen projection, at a staff meeting, of some instant-messenger venting of work frustrations to his wife. But our comments say the fault for the disaster at Hachette lies not with Anderman but with fashion primadonnas like Zee and his allies, including former store-salesman Pollock. "Todd's reputation in this business is stellar and for you to put such a nasty hit piece like this is deplorable," one wrote. Well, his reputation isn't universally "stellar," judging from the fallout from Berean and Pollock's resignation, reported in our original post. But every feud has two sides, and far be it from us to ignore either. The pro-Anderman comments are reproduced after the jump.

WSJ. (note important period), the Wall Street Journal's new glossy magazine, is rolling out in only three short months! Lo, how the idle rich of the world pine for its insights. The paper is already in strong PR mode for the launch, touting its roster of luxury advertisers. More importantly, what will the new rag—with an international circulation of almost a million—look like (besides the single prototype page, pictured)? We put together the clues:

Aww, poor Bill Bradley, the Vanity Fair worker who has been pointlessly tasked with getting 10,000 Facebook fans for the magazine in three months—or he's quite possibly fired! (To Bill's boss: this assignment is way too hard, dude.) His first plea has only garnered him an extra 800 or so fans fans (including myself): up to 1556 from 781. Plus, he's been peppered with a whole lot of useless comments and questions, including "Any chance we can get Waverly reservations by doing this?" Now the poor guy is reduced to making just-crazy-enough-pleas to be on Oprah. [VF Online]

Whoa. We all know the Tribune Company and its biggest paper, the LA Times, are in trouble. But this seems drastic even for them: the paper is considering a plan to fire the entire editorial staff of its Sunday magazine, and turn the whole operation over to the business side of the paper. It would no longer even be an editorial product. (Just try to imagine what would happen if the NYT Magazine did this). The newsroom is pissed, with LAT editor Russ Stanton reportedly asking the publisher to change the magazine's name if the plan goes through, so it doesn't tarnish the newsroom's credibility. Gee, we remember another LAT Sunday magazine scandal in 1999, back when these types of things actually provoked outrage rather than resignation:

Even for a supermarket tabloid, The Globe has a reputation for inaccuracy. But that doesn't mean every item in the gossip rag is wrong. In news that other shinier papers won't touch-like depressing celebrity decrepitude-The Globe has carved out something of a niche. Its story about actor Paul Newman's lung cancer has spread to the UK's Daily Star and now one of the Los Angeles Times blogs-not that replication of a lightly sourced item represents conclusive proof. [Defamer]

Old things are worthless in this computer world of the future! Look at old, venerable magazine titles. Life? Gone. The Saturday Evening Post? Ha. But the Sporting News—the throwback, stat-filled, serious sports magazine that started publishing in 1886—is trying to stage a comeback against the dominant glossies of today like ESPN Magazine. The Sporting News' three-pronged revival strategy: A digital newsletter; more (ghostwritten?) columns from retired sports stars (Troy Aikman speaks!); and a new column by the soon-to-be-former Deadspin.com cult figure Will Leitch. Hey, one of those might be beneficial!

After the severe bloodletting at Hachette's websites last month, one would expect remaining survivors at Elle.com, ElleGirl.com and Premiere.com might be grateful. Not so. In fact, there's been something of an uprising against digital vice president Todd Anderman (left), a clumsy transplant from Maxim Digital. As Women's Wear Daily is reporting, two of Anderman's top underlings have resigned: fashion director Joe Berean and Keith Pollock, executive editor of Elle.com and ElleGirl.com. Left unsaid? Pollock is the shopboy installed by Elle creative director Joe Zee, with whom he is said to be cozy, so his disgruntled exit from Anderman's employ will not soon be forgotten. Nor will the purported reason, a series of Anderman-instigated messes stretching back to an embarrassing incident involving the VP's laptop and a digital projector.