The US magazine circulation figures for the second half of 2009 are in. And grim! The big losers (and a winner), below.

Merry Groundhog Day! This morning Punxsutawney Phil "saw his shadow," meaning six more weeks of winter. Jesus. Every year we politely pay attention to these Pagans and their animal rituals and in return they fuck us. Enough already. [CNN]

Cablevision, an unskilled owner of newspapers, is asking for more work hours and cuts in pay and vacation time from employees at fucked-several-different-ways newspaper Newsday. The union says the "horrible" contract was the best it could get. Probably true, sadly.

What about the children? A cursory examination of the "news" reveals the chilling truth which we have all dreaded for so long: There is no hope for you, kids. Just do what you want.

Yet another reason to regret that college education: While unemployment nationwide began going down last month, guess which way unemployment among recent college grads moved? That's right: Up! Is there a "grim case study" to illustrate this problem, we wonder?

Cursed NY1 political anchor Dominic Carter was found guilty of assaulting his wife on Friday, after a judge called his wife's last-minute "an unidentified man did it" reversal "preposterous." Carter spent the weekend being screwed by fate, and the media.

After an all-too-brief period as King of the Tabloids, the New York Post's circulation is cratering. Could the "Scurrilous Money-Losing Yellow Tabloid Propped Up By a Rich Foreign Patron" formula be on the wane? Everyone must pitch in to help!

Last November, the AP decided it would be reducing its budget 10% this year—costing up to 400 jobs, we heard at the time. How's that going? Michael Calderone estimates they may need hundreds more layoffs before January. [Politico] *Clarification:

Last week we heard large-scale layoffs are hitting Forbes this week. An insider tells us "at least three" sales staffers were canned today. FishbowlNY got an internal memo from Steve Forbes telling his staff about what's to come:

Most of the serious bidders for Businessweek have dropped away, leaving Bloomberg as the leading candidate. We know BW's not exactly a fountain of profit these days. But would Bloomberg really gut the magazine's entire staff?

For weeks now, a scary number has been floating through the hallowed halls of Conde Nast: 25%. That's how much the gossipmongers speculated McKinsey would chop the company's budget. Evil rumors! Now it looks like that frightening number was correct.

Are you Trad? Totally tradded? Traddin' it up? Doesn't the very term "Trad" sound like the first name of some prep school prick? Trad Rockefeller III, the inventor of the "Look at my blazer" look? It's all the rage!

The unemployment rate climbed to 9.7%, with 216,000 jobs lost last month.

In your finally Friday media column: Army profiles of journalists are a huge waste of money, a special journalists asks for a special job, the New Yorker hires someone expressly to make you jealous, and newspapers lose billions again.

Just after announcing it would bring in McKinsey & Co. for some horrific cost-cutting, Conde Nast has released its official projections for its crucial September ad sales. We knew the numbers would be bad; they lived up to expectations.

Uh oh! The magical computer formulas that allow Goldman Sachs to continue making money, forever, as the world burns, have been stolen and sent to Germany! The FBI has arrested a Russian immigrant who used to work for Goldman.

The real estate market still sucks, in case you haven't noticed. According to reports issued by a handful of the city's biggest brokerages today, home sales were off 50 percent during the second quarter compared to same time period last year, and prices took a beating as well, naturally: The average sales price of a Manhattan apartment is now $1.31 million, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman, down 21 percent from a year ago. And today's report on unemployment courtesy of the U.S. Labor Department won't do much to lift your spirits. The jobless rate rose to 9.5 percent in June as the U.S. economy shed another 467,000 jobs. So is there anything good to report to offset all the bad news? We can't think of much, but we'll let you know if we come up with something. [Real Deal, NYT]

An actor named Kevin Byrd sent a bad, self-composed press release to reporters, which one of them posted on Facebook. A PR blogger picked it up to point out how bad it was. That's when Kevin Byrd came unhinged.

The media job market is tough. But there are always freelancing opportunities on Craigslist! Right? Right! Terrible, degrading freelance opportunities. Follow these onerous submission guidelines and you too could one day earn literally dozens of dollars, by writing!

NBC has announced its fall TV schedule, and dropped in an immensely disappointing piece of news: the 30 Rock season premiere date is TBA. They say maybe winter; it's currently May.