In your variegated Wednesday media column: Television's death foretold, the magazine industry's resurgence predicted, the Boston Globe's hope springs eternal, and something for tattoo enthusiasts to read.

• It's an ugly day at MySpace. The News Corp.-owned social network is slashing nearly 30 percent of its staff, or 400 people, due to a decline in sales. [BN, PC]
• Protesters in Iran have been using Twitter to keep up with developments on the ground. Now the State Department is stepping in and asking the company to put off a planned upgrade so service isn't disrupted. [Reuters]
• MTV entertainment president Brian Graden is departing the network. [NYP]
• It's official: NBC is dumping Live at Five and replacing it with an hour-long "daily information, lifestyle and entertainment show." [NYO]
• Interview dropped editorial director Glenn O'Brien last week. Now the magazine's parent company, Brant Publications, is suing him for allegedly breaking the terms of his confidentiality agreement. [WWD]

The New York Daily News dismissed gossip writer Sean Evans last Friday. The paper has yet to name a replacement to head up the Gatecrasher column with Laura Schreffler, and from the looks of things, the recruitment process isn't going very smoothly. Filling in for the week is "swag hag" Sarah Polonsky, the former National Enquirer reporter who worked very briefly at Page Six in late 2006, but was fired for running afoul of the paper's ban on accepting freebies. (Most recently, she's headed up a website called Cellofame.com.) Guard your gift bags, publicists! Polonsky's email below.

The failing San Francisco Chronicle has started—in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression—a blog by two idly rich guys. Topic: "What's it like to be rich?" Lots of dodging pitchforks, I imagine.

All of a sudden, thanks to Twitter and Bill Keller, Iran is like the biggest story of the year! What's the latest? Killings in the street, a president on the run, media in peril, and a Florida 2000 recount replay:

It's a good thing we've been closely monitoring the pages of ¡Hola! magazine. Otherwise we might have never realized that the "EXCLUSIVE tour" of Ivana Trump's townhouse on People's website was comprised of the same photos that appeared in the Spanish-language tabloid almost two months ago. But it's a good thing that Ivana's shockingly embarrassing taste in home décor has now been exposed to readers on multiple continents, isn't it? [¡Hola!, People]

The free world has been protesting North Korea's 12-year prison sentence of Current journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee as unjust and outrageous. How embarrassing! Now the women have admitted their vile crimes. According to North Korea's official news agency.

Brant Publications is, predictably, suing former editorial director Glenn O'Brien for trashing the company's reputation.

Do you have a car? Are you able to "work long hours"? Are you willing to sell yourself into journalistic indentured servitude for less than half a pittance? Here's your chance to edit a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper!

A new summer has blossomed (technically), and with it a new crop of celebrity media interns, riding their family names into coffee-fetching and fact-checking gigs that should rightfully go to miserable, debt-wracked, overqualified J-school graduates. This year's celeb intern class:

If Gisele Bundchen covers can't sell magazines, what is it that you people really want? This may be Michelle Obama's fault.

Ho ho, what do people who buy a copy of "Dillerland," a biography of married media mogul Barry Diller, also buy, according to the Amazon.com robots?

In your intermittently gloomy Monday media column: a new font at the New York Times, a fantastical price for the Boston Globe, black people would like to be invited on television sometimes, and the recession proves Steve Forbes right:

• The curse of Gisele: Both Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar put supermodel Gisele Bundchen on the covers of their mags this year, and both have turned out to be their worst-selling issues thus far in 2009. [NYO]
• Can Forbes survive the downturn? The Forbes family thinks so. [NYT]
• Jared Kushner's New York Observer has acquired Very Short List, the struggling email newsletter owned by Barry Diller's IAC. [Gawker, NYP]
• The Huffington Post has a new CEO, ex-Ziff-Davis CEO Eric Hippeau. [PC]
• BusinessWeek is the latest mag to test a paid online subscriptions. [MW]
• Barack Obama's half-brother landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. [AP]
• The Hangover and Up were the top-grossing films this past weekend. [LAT]
• The Boston Globe is up for sale—and a handful of people appear to be interested—although just how much they'll pay is anybody's guess. [NYT]
• ABC's Lost is the most watched TV show on the Internet. [Variety]

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller has parachuted into Iran to lend his considerable expertise to his paper's coverage of the disputed election. He should have stayed home.

On the scene to cover the Puerto Rican Day parade: none other than heir to the New York Times throne, A.G. "The Future" Sulzberger! A.G. did what he does best: ferret out penetrating quotes.

Current TV freelancers Laura Ling and Euna Lee are locked in a North Korean prison. Do you know whose fault this is? That's right, the internet's! It's true.

MSNBC's token Republican Joe Scarborough appeared on a guest on Meet The Press this morning and essentially gave credit to Barack Obama for setting the stage for revolution in Iran with his recent speech in Cairo.

What do you do when your media overlords cut your salary by 23% in order to keep your job alive? Do as the Boston Globe staffers are doing and throw a rainy-weekend BBQ to "celebrate" it, naturally.

New York Daily News gossip writer Sean Evans—one half of the paper's Gatecrasher column—has been let go, we confirmed this afternoon.