Bon Appetit and Gourmet are both Conde Nast-owned food magazines with similar reader demographics and ad rates. They're both equally popular among Gawker readers. They're both troubled. Why does Conde need both?

We have a hard time believing that Fishsticks Paltrow is the offspring of Blythe Danner, who seems like a nice lady who doesn't take herself so seriously.

You know that saying, "You can't squeeze blood from a stone"? Well, apparently, you can. The Tribune Company has had yet another round of layoffs.

Why is the Gray Lady building websites for the obscure suburbs of South Orange, Maplewood, and Milburn? Perhaps because those are the exact same towns Google executive Tim Armstrong picked for Patch, his local-news startup.

This headline from the Trentonian is about some traffic accident. Just go with it. It was nearly as clever as this item from the Guardian's music blog, screen-grabbed by an alert reader:

The Rocky Mountain News has rolled the presses for the last time. Here's your Media Crack another-one-bites-the-dust edition:

• Fox News remains in first place in the cable news ratings race. MSNBC is showing modest gains, while CNN is dropping like a lead balloon. [NYT, MM]
• Cablevision says it plans to charge readers to access to Newsday.com. [NYP]
• Hearst is launching an e-reader for magazines and newspapers. [Fortune]
• The Times is launching several local "citizen journalism" sites. [E&P]
• Sony CEO Howard Stringer has pushed aside two senior execs. [WSJ]
• Old Navy's newest ad campaign resembles a celeb tabloid. [Jossip]
• Peter Scarlet has resigned as the Tribeca Film Fest's artistic director. [THR]
• Take a tour of the White House with Katie Couric if you'd like. [YouTube]
• Denver's Rocky Mountain News says goodbye. [RMN]

The news that Google is placing ads on Google News has sent a renewed wave of handwringing through the newspaper industry. How dare those Googlers make online news a profitable business!

Pundits will say Newsday's desperate plan to charge for the Long Island newspaper's website is some kind of bellwether for the industry. What it really means: Newsday and its owner, Cablevision, have nothing to lose.

It was bad enough when a Fox News producer was fired for possessing child pornography. But now a former NPR correspondent has been charged in a child porn case. The problem is media-wide!

Fortune magazine staff writer Barney Gimbel has reportedly quit amid charges he ripped off entire sections of a New York Times Magazine article, in a plagiarism job a college freshman would be ashamed of.

In your funereal Thursday media column: the Rocky Mountain News is dead, we'll all see more dead soldiers, the New York Times is dying slowly [UPDATED: ad layoffs], and Tribune is dying quickly:

• Jerry Seinfeld has a new project in the works for NBC. The Marriage Ref will feature celebs "judging couples in the midst of marital disputes." [THR]
• The Times is scaling back the number of issues it publishes of T. [NYP]
• The Gray Lady does say it has enough cash to last through '09, though. [E&P]
• Denver's Rocky Mountain News is shutting down on Friday. [AP]
• Fox has renewed The Simpsons for two more seasons. [Variety]
• ABC collected $72 million for the 26 minutes of ad time it sold during the Oscars. Overall, ad spending fell by 10 percent this year, though. [TVW, NYT]
• Doubledown Media, which ceased operations recently, is bankrupt. [MM]
• You can now download CBS shows to your iPhone. Enjoy. [NYT]

It's Thursday—the day when the New York Times Style section constructs tenuous trend stories designed to infuriate us about largely illusory issues! Woo hoo! Today's trend: crazy parents turn their kids into health food zombies!

Author and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff has been inescapable on the airwaves in recent days, ripping the Post, News Corp. and its chairman Rupert Murdoch to shreds for the Post's tasteless cartoon last week. Of course, Wolff has good reason to seek out the attention. His biography on Murdoch, which was published in December, has been a stunning failure: According to Bookscan, which tracks roughly 75% of the books sold in the U.S., The Man Who Owns the News has sold just over 15,000 copies since it was published in December, a far cry from what publisher Doubleday was expecting given he reportedly took home a $1 million advance and Doubleday indicated it would "start off" with a 100,000 print run. But while it's no surprise to see Wolff carry on about News Corp. (and his other pet obsession, the New York Times), it is a bit surprising to see Wolff invoking ethics and morals. Why, you ask? Perhaps because it's always a bit difficult to take an ethics lesson from a married man who carried on an affair with a woman nearly three decades his junior who also happened to be an intern at the magazine he writes for.

Octogenarian gossipmonger Liz Smith was dropped by the New York Post yesterday, but she doesn't want you all to fret. She has other outlets! Although she still, charmingly, doesn't understand the internet at all:

Shallon Lester, the NY Daily News gossip girl who caused some hard feelings by trying to land her own reality show and posing for crazy magazine covers, quit today. To become a music flack!

In your chunky Wednesday media column: awful bad terrible newspaper news (and suggestions!), Hallmark dies politely, Rupert Murdoch's deadly newspaper addiction may be getting worse, and much more!

Brian Tierney was a bulldog Philadelphia PR man much hated by Philadelphia journalists before he led a group that bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News in 2006. Let's review how that's worked out:

• President Obama's first Congressional address drew in 33.6 million viewers last night, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen. [ML]
• It was Chris Matthews who muttered "Oh, God" on MSNBC last night, right when Bobby Jindal was about to deliver the Republican response. [Politico]
• Fourth-quarter profit declined 77 percent at the Washington Post Co. [NYT]
• Remember the DABA Girls? Yea, well, much of what they told the Times was BS, which is why the paper issued a correction today. [Newsweek, NYT]
• The CW has renewed a bunch of shows, including 90210, Smallville, America's Next Top Model, and—most importantly—Gossip Girl. [Variety]
• Ex-Domino editor Deborah Needleman is "spending more time at the gym" in order to acquire "one of those Connecticut-housewife bodies," FYI. [MM]
• Jared Kushner may be cutting a deal to sell the Observer at Starbucks. [NYP]