Hip Hop Weekly is an execrable, half-assed attempt at a hip hop version of Us Weekly. HHW was founded a couple of years ago by Dave Mays and Benzino, the guys who ran The Source into the ground through sheer selfishness before being forced out. Suffice it to say there's no reason to have a sympathetic view of the magazine's existence. Which makes this epic email fuckup on their part—reprinted below!—that much more enjoyable: HHW, we hear, has trouble paying its vendors, writers, and photographers. Or just doesn't want to. Either way, lots of people who have done work for the magazine are pissed at it. So it was pretty dumb for HHW to (mistakenly?) blast out an invitation to its 50th issue release party to a long list of contributors who hadn't been paid yet. Cue the responses!

We asked, earlier this week, if "editors are 'retards' and servants to Arianna" Huffington, subject of an all-too-squishy New Yorker profile this week. After hearing from still more Huffington Post insiders, it would seem the answer is a resounding "yes." And an obvious "yes" to those who have come to appreciate that the ambitious divorcée draws few boundaries between her own professional and personal lives, working manically, phoning and emailing editors in the middle of the night, obsessively arranging the order of stories on HuffPo's front page and in its various sections, and hollering at her staff over an intercom in her Brentwood mansion even while she has her nails done. The only clear line, it seems, is between the smart, charming image Huffington projects to her celebrity friends and the world at large and the rather nastier and more careless Arianna seen inside HuffPo.

Earlier, we called for Brit teen socialite-cokehead and It Child Peaches Geldof's firing, deeming her a menace to society. And then there's her friend, Internet phenomenon Cory Kennedy, famous for, um, being an "Internet It Girl" and dating that Cobrasnake dude? Anyway, when they are not "writing" and "modeling" for Nylon, Peaches is spilling the beans on what drugs certain co-workers at the downtown fashion mag—who might actually have to work!—are usin'.

The men of America simply do not appreciate the virtues of lotion. Nivea Men sold just 15,000 bottles last year nationwide, compared with 6 million for the lady version of Nivea. So consumer products giant Unilever is determined to show males just how critical a role lubricating skin products can have in their lives. It created Vaseline Men, because the standard version of the petroleum jelly is apparently just too feminine. And it's touting the product using a football defensive end, promises involving "performance and endurance" and ads "emphasizing skin's... strength and thickness," the Times reports. Sounds pretty hot. Marketingwise. Also, there's this incredible testimonial, which you should repeat in front of the mirror, every morning, forever:

"The largest newspaper in New Jersey, The Star-Ledger, will not change hands or go out of business — at least not for a while — its owners said on Wednesday, after employees agreed to buyouts and concessions." [Times, Previously]

Page Six is gloating this morning. Talent agency William Morris just sold its Beverly Hills headquarters for $143 million and the Post gossip section totally called it, even in the face of William Morris' heated denials. "We told you," brags Page Six. But here's the thing: It took three and a half years for Page Six's gossip to come true. So for their scoop to be valid, you have to believe the headquarters sat on the marker for several years, even though it listed during one of the most frenzied commercial real estate markets ever, only to find a buyer in the worst office downturn in four years. Or maybe a company "desperate... to raise cash" (according to Page Six) took three years to organize a fire sale. Not likely.

So how the hell does John McCain pull this one out of the bag? Even the conservative commentators think the national economic crash has doomed him. Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday the Republican presidential nominee needed to do well at the debate or "say goodbye," and he didn't do well at all. Now comes Joe Scarborough on last night's Colbert Report saying "it's too late" for McCain because he can't win on tax cuts or a sexy VP or terrorist fearmongering or just general demagoguery when voters are scared of starving in the streets.

Wow, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds just unloaded a pissy rant on the Obama campaign, saying the Democratic presidential nominee is going to be punished for not coddling campaign reporters well enough. And it sounds like he thinks Obama deserves it. In a "reporter's notebook" posted to CBSNews.com, Reynolds complains that Obama's people pick up journalists' luggage at a very inconvenient hour. It keeps them waiting for up to two hours in parking lots with nothing to do, bored. And they sometimes force them to travel when they could be on live television, goosing ratings for their corporate overlords. Don't even get Reynolds started on Obama's weak-ass plane!

Ever since gay men's magazine Details launched, sharp-sighted observers—those with two eyeballs—have pointed out that it is, essentially, a gay magazine. We were writing about it five years ago! It's led to years and years of jokes about the magazine's gay contests and gay covers and gay vending machines. But now, at long last, we have actual proof that Details is, without a doubt, a solid member of the homosexual magazine cabal: One of our tipsters subscribes to different magazines under different names, in order to smoke out those that are selling his name to various marketers. He's a Details subscriber. And lo and behold, which other magazine just sent him a discount voucher? The Advocate—the oldest LGBT magazine in America:

It's just so perfect. Tribune Co. already boasts gnomish asshole CEO Sam Zell, who cusses out his own employees in public, and "Chief Innovation Officer" (ha) Lee Abrams, the dumbest guy in the newspaper industry. And now Eddy Hartenstein (pictured), who Tribune hired as the new publisher of the doomed LA Times last month, is telling LAT reporters that leaking memos to blogs is "treason":

You have to give credit to the people who have the unenviable job of selling enough online ads to keep the New York Times afloat. At least they're brainstorming! Already this year they've experimented with creative strategies like selling the entire top of the homepage to Apple. And today, we see, they've come up with yet another space that can be "sponsored": The archives! The CBS show Eleventh Hour has a "sponsored archive" of free NYT stories about cloning humans and stuff, which presumably is a topic related to Eleventh Hour. It might grate on traditionalists, but we can't hate on things like this too much. Better to sell new online ads than, say, start plastering the front page of the print edition with ads. Besides, Thomas Friedman's mustache wax ain't free.

People is coming out with a 96-page "tribute" "book" "honoring" the recently dead Paul Newman. It will sell for $12, and none of the proceeds will go to charity, despite the fact that Newman dedicated the latter part of his life to working for charitable causes. But, to use the line that Jossip unfortunately beat us to this morning, it's "sort of okay, because this year, the print industry basically is a charity." Yep. [Folio]

Once upon a time, back in the days when H.L. Mencken was prowling the metaphorical streets of journalism, drinking bourbon for breakfast and smoking cigars in theaters and making women do laundry for weeks on end, a reporter could dream of nothing better than being assigned to cover the State Capitol. He'd go on up there and sit around drinking bourbon and smoking cigars and subjugating women and occasionally filing stories, after which he would go out and engage in scandalous behavior with the politicians he covered. Life was sweet. But now guess what: penniless newspapers can't even afford the meager salaries of statehouse reporters any more! The number of reporters covering the NY state government in Albany has dropped from 59 to 42 in the last quarter century. And one count says there are just over 400 full time statehouse reporters in the whole country. The glorious days are gone!

Condé Nast has devoted an enormous sum to launch its new business title, Portfolio: While initial estimates pegged the cost at $100 million, it was recently reported that the media conglomerate may be planning to spend $150 million to get the magazine off the ground. Since its debut in 2007, Portfolio has struggled to gain subscribers and advertisers, fired editors and hired new ones, changed its cover strategy, and emerged as the perpetual train wreck that media obsessives can't get enough of. But now we hear things are worse than ever. "With everything that's happened over the past few weeks, everyone is much more concerned," an insider tells us. For good reason.

It was something of a coup when Vanity Fair, in May, did what its Condé Nast sibling Portfolio couldn't and poached Fortune's winsome star writer Bethany McLean. If Portfolio's uncertain editor Joanne Lipman was annoyed then, she must be really steaming now that rival Graydon Carter snagged his latest catch from her own magazine. Vanity Fair's editor just inked an exclusive deal, the Observer reports, with Michael Lewis, who had contracts at both Lipman's glossy and with the Times magazine. Carter lured Lewis even though the Liar's Poker author recently saw his pay upped at Portfolio and despite a grudge the financial writer harbored against Vanity Fair for 10 years over an an unflattering 1997 profile. How did Carter do it?

The implosion of American capitalism could not leave the Wall Street Journal unscathed. Newsroom staff, already working long hours covering the financial panic, now have to contend with a computer crunch. The paper is dropping its lavish policy of allowing staff two PCs, including one opulent "ultra-lightweight" notebook. Reporters who want the luxury of working from home or filing from the field will have to haul their full-sized laptops — bought from the company that spied on them — back into the office when done, because the Journal won't spring for a dedicated desktop PC. Those cost literally hundreds of dollars a piece, computer hogs. Also, no Macs, because those are for communists. Just be glad you didn't get laid off like those New Jersey people. Yet. The full internal memo is after the jump.

One might expect a right-wing shouting head like Bill O'Reilly to help the Republican Party ratchet down expectations for John McCain ahead of tonight's presidential debate. But the Fox News Channel host is raising the stakes. A few minutes before the debate started, O'Reilly said the event will mark the Republican presidential nominee's "last stand." "McCain has to do well tonight, or say goodbye," he added. We're still pretty sure there's a scheme here — O'Reilly's probably got an easy definition of "well" — but this makes it all the more difficult for McCain to spin if he does poorly. Click the video icon to watch the clip. (PS: The commenter liveblog is here in case you missed it.)

Honestly? We'd rather read a book-length history of the Hillary Clinton campaign written by Josh Green than read another word about McCain and Obama. But let's take a look at the people currently working on their own novelistic takes on the waking nightmare that has been 2008 thus far! The Observer reports on the contenders: Michael Takiff, on oral historian. He's writing a Bill Clinton biography (though maybe it's been shelved). He's a Nation-contributing lefty, who once also tried to write a book about George McGovern. You might be able to guess how his book would read. Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. Balz, the consummate Washington Post political correspondent, has been following both campaigns around and probably has the sources to get some good material for a quickie book. It's up to Haynes Johnson, the former civil rights reporter who now writes big grand sweeping statement books about how it's "the age of" something or other, to give it a cohesive narrative. That narrative will probably be pretty middle-of-the-road. And Johnson is probably too old to get THE INTERNET. But maybe it'll be good? Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Halperin writes The Page for Time. Before that, he wrote The Note for ABC. He became the King of the Washington Press Corps in the '90s when he underminded Clinton and the liberals all the time and sucked Drudge's cock incessantly. He's so far outside reality now that his last book was on how the next president would have to heed the words of Karl Rove and worship at the altar of Drudge. His blog is unreadable and he was dead wrong on the Biden pick, even though he erased the entry and tried to pretend he had it too. Heilmann, though, is the very very good New York Magazine political writer. John, find a different co-author and we're right there with you!

Sharon Waxman is a former NYT reporter who quit the paper to go to LA and make her way on the wild World Wide Web, which has "endlessly rich tools to pursue our craft," etc. She sent out an email today to her Trusted Friends and Colleagues telling them that The Wrap News, "which will have a fresh approach on reporting news in the entertainment industry" (!) and will be a "multi-platform source," etc., is all set to launch in January, and by the way please take a survey. And who will the world have to thank for Waxman's new "news and community resource for entertainment professionals?" Heartless Gawker, which made her quit her real job, allegedly!: Waxman's schadenfreude on our recent layoffs:

The United States Treasury has selected the man whose job is to save our nation's finances by leading the government bailout of Wall Street: a 35-year-old AC/DC lover. Oh that's just great US government, just great. The whole entire media is scrambling to come up with enough background on the guy to fill up a feature story, and it's rough going. We've condensed every salient interesting fact about Neel Kashkari, the unblinking anointed guardian of your money, in a handy guide, after the jump: