We heard from a pretty good source that two Jossip-owned blogs—celebrity-focused Mollygood and black person-focused Stereohyped—are shutting down, probably due to the bad economy. And it's at least half confirmed, because Mollygood has just written a post confirming that she's gone [UPDATE: Now it's totally confirmed; additional goodbye post here]. They're both pretty decent blogs in their fields, so the appropriate response here is sadness. If you have more details we should know, feel free to email us; below, a small excerpt of Mollygood's goodbye [UPDATE 2: And a statement from Jossip boss David Hauslaib]:

New Yorker author Hendrick Hertzberg's made a powerful enemy: Bill O'Reilly! O'Reilly selected Hertzberg for the honor of an ambush by that smug "producer" who ambushes people mostly because Hertzberg wrote something mildly critical of O'Reilly that was easy to take out of context and also in terms of imaginary powerful "liberal elitists" to battle, you can't do better than a political writer for The New Yorker. The sadly anti-climactic video of the ambush, attached.

The New York Daily News has trailed the Post's Page Six in the New York gossip wars for a long time. Now the paper is blowing up its gossip columns and starting over. Two major changes went down today. First, husband and wife gossip team Rush & Molloy announced this morning that they'll be moving from a daily column to a Sunday-only schedule, after more than 13 years. Second—and more dramatic—we hear that Jo Piazza, who wrote the paper's Full Disclosure column, has resigned.

We hear that Outside's "upscale travel and style magazine" GO has laid off several staffers, and may be planning to fold after a couple more issues. If you have any info on this or any other candidates for the Great Magazine Die-Off, email us. UPDATE: The magazine's PR person emailed us a press release from two weeks ago saying the magazine is cutting back to two issues next year. There you go!

Hey, why all the layoffs this week? Please don't say "It's the economy, stupid." That's really annoying. Of course it is the economy, but this week has been bad even by the standards of the last three months. Because it has special qualities! Qualities that, unfortunately, conspired to screw thousands of people out of employment. After the jump, we'll have a little review of the most recent bad news, and explain why everybody got executed just after they finished their last Thanksgiving leftovers.

Newsday, the Long Island paper that was bought by Cablevision for $680 million earlier this year in one of the worst-timed (and most unpopular) media purchases in recent memory, is unsurprisingly being forced to lay people off. The paper is cutting 100 jobs, about 5% of its total workforce. Details of the cuts, in that inimitable corporate internal layoff memo style, below:

Sarah Palin is a lot like that Simpsons Halloween episode where the advertising characters terrorize Springfield: if we stop paying attention to her, she can't hurt us. But no one's able to let her go. Neither the liberals who are alternately amused by and horrified of her and the conservatives split between idolizing and reviling her can let her just go back to Alaska in peace. The Times is still looking into the clothes thing. Olbermann still replays every public statement she makes every night while demanding to know why people still pay her mind. And guess who's still obsessed with her magical pregnancy?

It was hilariously revealed a couple weeks ago that hippie folk singer Ani DiFranco personally played a set for capitalist Wall Street Journal staffers in their actual building, for some reason. Well now, further hilarious elements of this story have emerged. Among them: There is an actual place called "The WSJ Cafe"; Ani DiFranco played there; and finally, the WSJ has a staffer named "Chris Farley," who interviewed the hippie singer, right there in the "WSJ Cafe." Click here for the a video of the encounter, which, inexplicably, exists. [WSJ via Jezebel]

♦ Newsday is slashing 100 jobs. [Newsday]
♦ More on the cutbacks at CNBC and some cost-cutting measures at OK! [NYP]
♦ Bill O'Reilly is giving up his syndicated radio show. [NYDN]
♦ The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg was ambushed by Bill O'Reilly operatives outside his apartment building. Confusion and hilarity ensues. [HuffPo]
♦ Oprah Winfrey was named the most powerful woman in entertainment as part of the Hollywood Reporter's "Power 100" issue. [THR]
♦ Neal Boulton, the attention-seeking former editor of Men's Fitness, is writing a book about life as a bisexual. [P6]
♦ Lauren Zalaznick says that NBC is not interesting in selling iVillage. [WWD]
♦ George Rush and Joanna Molloy are stepping down as daily gossips for the Daily News, but they'll stay on with the paper with a Sunday column. [NYDN]

Here's Vanity Fair editor and Waverly Inn/Monkey Bar owner Graydon Carter at Robin Hood Foundation breakfast at the Plaza Hotel this past Tuesday. At a panel yesterday, he said he wasn't worried about the sad state of the magazine industry: "All three of these magazines are, you know, a few years on either side, 100 years old and we've been through many ups and downs." We pointed out that while VF was founded in 1914, it had a "brief 48-year-long Great Depression-induced hiatus." [Photo via Melissa C. Morris] [Thanks for this caption, commenter TedSez!]

Why does the public not sufficiently appreciate the hardworking people at OK! magazine? Last month there were rumors that Richard Desmond, the billionaire British publisher of the laughable celebrity mag, actually flew to America to personally investigate why new OK! boss Kent Brownridge was losing money. The magazine's flack denied this, saying they where "doing fine." Shockingly, it appears what that flack said was not entirely true, because OK! has decided to skip four issues at the end of this year:

Nick Kristof, the Times' most earnestly boring columnist, has started a Twitter feed. Finally. Here's the single most interesting thing he's said so far: "Here's my fave word of the week: 'leporine.' Apparently it means rabbit-like. Great word, no? I'll try sneaking it into a column. —ndk." Nick, you sly devil! I feel like I am literally standing on the set of All The President's Men.

IAC boss Barry Diller could not give a fluff about this "recession" you speak of! While pessimists like our own boss here are laying people off in anticipation of economic doom for media companies in the coming year, Diller is prescribing just the opposite strategy. Yesterday he slammed profitable companies for making layoffs and throwing workers out into an unforgiving environment, and said now is a great time to buy companies. He also railed against "indiscriminate spending." So does Diller measure up to his own expectations? Ehhh...

Yesterday's 500 layoffs at NBC Universal would have been a bigger story if not for the 850 layoffs at Viacom on the same day. CNBC—which is currently the go-to media outlet for the economic story of a generation—may have talked its way out of trouble (a bit). The Post says CNBC had 55 layouts yesterday, rather than the 80 that were predicted. And they've wisely shut down their most superfluous show:

Neal Boulton is reportedly orgasmic. The editor of a magazine for gays and a website for bis signed a book deal (with an agent) and claims to be drowning in reality show offers following a profile in Page Six Magazine. Everyone wants to screw and/or sign the sexual libtertine, supposedly, because of his oh-so-exciting and freewheeling life. But all indications are that his most famous antics were manufactured in the press. Take his alleged macking with Rolling Stone Jann Wenner, for example, Boulton's claim to "pansexual" fame.

New York City was lucky enough today to play host to a fancy panel discussion featuring the world's three fanciest magazine editors: Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, Vogue's Anna Wintour, and The New Yorker's David Remnick. And Joe Nocera of the Times uncouthly "lashed out at the editors and asked how each of the them could be so sanguine about the future." Pish posh! Graydon Carter is convinced his invincible publication will weather this economic storm as it always has:

Back when we were all convinced for some reason that it mattered, it was big news that Oprah Winfrey, the most powerful woman on television, refused to let Sarah Palin, the governor of Culture Warkansas, on her popular television program. Because Oprah is a liberal elitist who supported Barack Obama, you see. Also because Oprah didn't have any candidates on her show after her endorsement of Barack Obama. "I would love to have her on after the campaign is over," Oprah said. Conservatives would surely have jumped all over her if she'd continued to refuse to invite Sarah Palin on, so we're happy to announce that Sarah Palin has herself refused to do Oprah.

"Our show hits a nerve," Donnie Deutsch explained to a reporter from Success magazine when he asked to account for the appeal of his nightly CNBC talk show, The Big Idea. Apparently whatever nerve it was hitting wasn't the right one. TVNewser reports that the network has put Deutsch's show on hiatus, since "the idea of a 'success show' is not right in this economic climate." [TVNewser]

Concerned about the job prospects for the already-wealthy cads who made a pile in finance jobs? Sure, we all are. There's good news, though; corporate types who suddenly find themselves unemployed have all decided, en masse, to become personal trainers. These former office-bound A-type personalities are all lining up to sell their exercise services to, uh, you know, whoever may have some disposable income left.

The 850 layoffs at Viacom today—including hundreds at MTV—are claiming the livelihoods of tons of hardworking people who did their jobs well without ever receiving fame and fortune. And just like when a jumbo jet crashes with hundreds of souls aboard, the first question is: "Were any celebrities involved?" You know you were thinking that, you heartless swine. Well (according to an unconfirmed rumor from an inside tipster), your third-favorite MTV correspondent-for-life, John Norris, was laid off today. After the jump, we've got other reports from the Viacom scene.