In your rubble-strewn Friday media column: rumors of carnage at Budget Travel, threats at a medical journal, advertising havoc at ESPN mag, and editors destroy everything:

Tipsters tell us that Budget Travel had some carnage this week. We hear that somewhere between two and twelve editors and staffers were laid off, and freelancers had their hours and pay cut. This prompted tears and panicked talk of having to sell apartments, we hear. If you know more, email us. [FBNY hears the same thing]


Dramatic drama at the Journal of the American Medical Association! A nonprofit group says that the Journal's two top editors "threatened a researcher who criticized a study published in the journal," and is calling on those editors to resign. No word from JAMA yet, but let's hope that everyone involved can resist the urge to settle this with a scalpel fight.


The editor of Southern Breeze theorizes: Shitty editors are to blame for magazines' demise.

ESPN Magazine has a god damn Powerade ad in this month's issue that folds out over half of the front cover, which, Jeff Bercovici points out, appears to be a violation of ASME guidelines. I imagine ESPN's response would be along the lines of: "Fuck ASME," followed by thirty minutes of fantalk about Manny Ramirez, until finally you pretend your cell phone is ringing just so you can get away.


And in the newspaper industry today, everything came to a grinding halt.