In your troubling Wednesday media column: layoffs at Conde Nast and the Boston Globe, Bill Keller fights back, King's officially dead, North Korea's still mean to journalists, and more:

• All those layoffs at Forbes yesterday? They continue today, sadly. [NYP]
• Times executive editor Bill Keller has a few words for Marc Bowden, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece about Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Also? He thinks VF should really beef up its factchecking department. [Romenesko]
• The biggest media company in America? That would be Disney. [BN]
• Nine of the top 10 cable news programs belong to Fox News. [HP]
• The winners of the 2008 Peabody Awards were announced today. [AP]
• Wanda Sykes is getting her own talk show. [B&C]
• Video from Bill O'Reilly's chat with David Letterman last night. [MM]
• Guiding Light is done. The final episode airs Sept. 18. [THR]

• NBC is chopping 6 shows, including, yes, the Chopping Block. [THR]
• It's rumored Budget Travel has, yes, cut its budget. [Gawker]
• Another stain on Jim Cramer, not that he needs it: In '07, he called Andrew Cuomo a "communist" for proposing mortgage industry regulation. [NYT]
• The Times's Bill Keller sheds some light on yesterday's cuts and layoffs. [E&P]
• Condé Nast's Chuck Townsend sheds light on his staff changes. [AdAge]
• Lionsgate slashed 8 percent of its staff today. [THR]
• Newspaper ad revenue dropped 17.7% in 2008. [E&P]
• Americans spend 8.5 hours a day consuming video content. [NYT]
• Facebook needs a (generous) friend: It's trying to raise $100 million. [PC]
• Cable company Charter Communications is officially bankrupt. [NYT]

• More magazine closures may be on the way at Condé Nast. [NYO]
• Time Warner posted a fourth-quarter loss of $16 billion. [AP]
• Bill Keller says there are "deadly serious" discussions taking place at the New York Times about charging for access to the paper's website. [E&P]
• Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has signed a seven-figure deal with Viking to write a book about last year's presidential election. [AP]
• Thanks to Ron Burkle, Wal-Mart customers can no longer pick up copies of magazines like People, Sports Illustrated and Time. [NYP]
• Jonathan Wald is leaving CNBC. [CNBC]
• Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation are close to a merger. [WSJ]

NYT editor Bill Keller directly addressed questions about the paper's business model today—specifically, about charging for online news, and the possibility of the paper going non-profit. He'll have to decide sooner than he'd like.

In your lovely Monday media column: Bill Keller speaks on the NYT's future (it'll be fine!), New York's least fun media Super Bowl party revealed, papers advertise, and more!

Kate Moss turns 35 today. Page Six's Richard Johnson is turning 55. Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl is celebrating her 61st. Republican fundraiser (and cosmetics company founder) Georgette Mosbacher is 62. Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi is turning 28. Dr. Laura Schlessinger is 62. And the singer Sade is 50. Weekend birthdays appear after the jump!

Succession politics plays out like palace intrigue at the New York Times and questions about how much longer executive editor Bill Keller plans to stay in his job are already stirring. Keller says, "Bullshit."

Despite the avalanche of media layoffs, (Gannett, Time Inc., and Business Week publisher McGraw-Hill have all announced major job cuts this week) New York Times executive editor Bill Keller bucked the trend by doing his best to pour cold water on our earlier tip about 20% layoffs coming to its 1,200-strong newsroom. Per the Observer, he told his staff, "I do not see another round of newsroom reductions on the horizon," and that he had access to some sort of special "investment fund" for new hires on the business desk. He even gave a non-denial denial of our original item: "Consider the source." Okay then! But what we're still hearing is that Keller's editorial side of the paper is in the midst of a big fight with the business side over the timing and size of staff cuts. So, while layoffs may not be on his horizon, they are for the people looking at the numbers.The scenario sounds reminiscent of the three-year, knock-down, drag-out battle at the L.A. Times that led to three different top editors stepping down rather than implement the job cuts demanded by Tribune Co. executives staring at dwindling circulation and advertising trends. Eventually, management won (who'd a guessed it?) and the LAT has been shedding jobs ever since. And in another parallel to the ongoing Tribune saga, we also hear that some in the NYT executive suite have broached the topic of putting prize New York Times Co. assets (such as its office building, its stake in the Boston Red Sox, About.com, regional papers) on the block to raise enough cash to take the company private, which, considering the five-year, 80% swoon of its stock price to a $1.4 billion market cap, is becoming an ever cheaper proposition.

Despite the economic meltdown, and despite having its debt downgraded to junk status, the New York Times Company does not plan any more layoffs, Times editor Bill Keller told staff. There had been rumors of a 20 percent headcount reduction, but according to Keller's prepared remarks, as presented by the Observer, the paper thinks it can get by with some extreme belt-tightening. "There will be no luxuries and little comfort," Keller said rather darkly in the midst of a sugary pep-talk. That still doesn't explain how the Times Company will pay the half-a-billion dollars it has coming due over the next couple of years.

Early Saturday morning I dragged myself to the New Yorker Festival in Midtown, to see media mensch Ken Auletta moderate a panel discussion with Times editor Bill Keller, Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates, Slate press critic Jack Shafer, and breathless WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan, the token conservative. I'll leave out the boring recap parts and distill the experience down to its key point: Peggy Noonan should go back to writing political speeches, because—even taking into account the fact that she's a Republican hack—her dishonesty is embarrassing to watch. Ugh. Noonan, remember, was caught on a live mic talking about how the selection of Sarah Palin as VP was "bullshit." A fact that was referenced repeatedly by Ken Auletta! So what did Noonan spend the bulk of her time on the panel (subject: "Covering the Candidates") doing? Defending Sarah Palin. It was far too early to take notes, but I'll sum up Peggy's arguments: "Sarah Palin, fresh, new, American, real, six-pack, women, sexism?, the American people." The experience was strange because every single person sitting in the room—the panelists, the moderator, the audience, the security guards—was well aware how dumb Sarah Palin is. But there was Peggy, gamely searching for some all-American Reaganesque prose to elevate Palin into something legitimate. The panel was about the media, so the bold political hackery was jarring and out of place, like when those crazy Christians wave signs at the funerals of dead soldiers saying God killed them because of fags. There's a time and a place for your brand of lying, Peggy. It's on the weekend talk shows, after you sign on as a speechwriter for the sure-to-be successful Palin administration. There are lots of political hacks writing columns; but Noonan always wants to pop up as some sort of spokeswoman for Middle America, in the most patronizing way possible to actual Middle Americans. You failed at the New Yorker Festival, Peggy Noonan. The contrast between Noonan and the other panelists was what made the entire ordeal grimace-worthy. Bill Keller has more political pressure on him than almost anyone in the entire media. But when Ken Auletta asked him how it affected him when the McCain campaign charged the Times with being in the tank for Obama, Keller said (approximately): "It makes me want to find the toughest, hardest story about McCain we have and put it on the front page the next day." That's called honesty, Peggy Noonan. Retire with your trademark false grace. [Pic via Startraks]

The New York Times launched its "social networking" feature TimesPeople months ago for no particular reason, and with no particular effect. Back then even top editor Bill Keller wasn't using it. But now he is! You know what this means, don't you? It's one more way for suckup Times reporters to track who the boss is favoring. Almost as good as looking at the front page! So what is Keller recommending? Let's see:

The New York Times ran a huge (huge!) A1 investigative piece on John McCain and his weird gambling obsession and ties to the Indian Casino industry and Vegas and lobbyists and ten thousand other things yesterday. It was well-reported, historical in focus, and fair. It ran on the front page of the Sunday edition, which reaches almost half a million more readers than the weekday edition. But, you know, no one is talking about it. It didn't really stick! Did anyone read the whole thing? Were there bombshells? Who knows! What happened? The Times sabotaged itself, either intentionally or through ineptitude. Allow us to explain. Times editor Bill Keller complains a lot these days about how no one pays enough attention to the Times and their big stories. He blames the internet and a million competing voices for distracting people from the Important Work of Times journalists. He's sorta right! Gone are the days when the Times set the agenda for the national press. Though the slow death of newspapers across the nation has been beneficial to the Times in one important way: they're the only national paper, effectively. A Times investigation reaches more of the country than a Washington Post investigation. So one would expect a story of this size and seeming heft would make a big splash. But it didn't! Drudge didn't play it up—though as we move closer to the election, he regresses even more to his natural Republican hackdom, so they shouldn't have expected a push from him. And the liberals have no one coherent answer to Drudge, just a million sites trying desperately to push their own often competing agendas. Kos, Talking Points Memo, and the Huffington Post all share an elitist coastal liberal bias and huge audiences, but very different methods of achieving their goals and working the media refs. But on the other hand... the way the Times dropped the story seems self-defeating. Front page of the Sunday edition, sure. But it went online Saturday night. So by the time Monday morning rolls around, it seems ancient, even though no one actually talked about it over the weekend. Furthermore, it came right after a presidential debate, right before a hugely anticipated vice presidential debate, and right in the midst of a gigantic economic crisis and a desperate attempt by Congress to prevent another Great Depression. The Times should've had the story go live online on Thursday night (in time for it to be an issue in the debates!), they should've leaked salient details to Drudge beforehand, or they should've waited until the bailout negotiations collapsed or succeeded. The fact that they did none of those things indicates to us that they didn't actually want this story to blow up. Maybe there's nothing actually to it (though the bit where McCain helped take down Jack Abramoff because he was the competition to McCain's preferred lobbyists seems a bit juicy, right?) or maybe they've actually been cowed by the McCain campaigns attacks on their credibility, or maybe they just don't know what the hell they're doing. Now, for your edification, some interesting bits from the 100-page Times piece on John McCain's gambling addiction:

Emma Gilbey Keller's new book "The Comeback" is, in part, about emerging from under the shadow of her husband, Times editor Bill Keller. Good luck with that. In the insular world of publishing, the Times Book Review still reigns supreme, and the positive Sunday notice on Emma Keller's title has already arched some eyebrows. Sure, the Keller family connection is disclosed. But people are already wondering about self-dealing at the Times after recent gushing praise for a book by a New York Times Co. executive and four separate plugs for a book by the husband of a company director — whose book-writing son also got notice in the paper. Then there's the efficient praise the Times had for Emma's last book. Newspaper gossips will remember it from the author.

If there's one thing we're absolutely sick of it's journalists complaining about other journalists for no reason except to revel in the glorious, righteous contrarianism of complaint. And we are about to complain about it. Ha, cause we're so contrarian! Check out my surprising viewpoint, baby! I'd like to start off my complaint by telling Washington City Paper editor Erik Wemple to shut up. Wemple's column, which I am now whining about, is him whining about the whining of the New York Times. Specifically, about the Times being disappointed at the fact that their pretty fucking awesome Sarah Palin blowout story last weekend didn't have the same resonance that it would have had in times past, because the media is overcrowded these days. ***WHICH IS TRUE.*** Okay then. Go, Wemple:

Intimate look at the New York Times alert! The paper has launched a social networking feature called "TimesPeople," which is a little like Facebook for Times employees (and the public!). But without any of Facebook's drunk pictures or other interesting features. Pictured, what editor Bill Keller is up to: not a damn thing. The only useful aspect of TimesPeople is that newsroom brown-nosers can track the Times in-crowd by keeping tabs on Keller's list of friends. He only has seven now, but one of them is Batman:

When Microsoft's bid for Yahoo fell through, hotshot reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin produced a scathing analysis of the deal-making skills of the Redmond software giant's boss, Steve Ballmer. 'Microsoft has tried to spin its reversal as a show of "discipline" and "self-control." But what it really shows - painfully - is Mr. Ballmer's indecisiveness about this deal.' Ouch! And fun! But you won't find Bill Keller and his fellow editors boasting about Sorkin's punchiness: because they're still in denial about the blurring of news and opinion, and so much else.

The NYT's news section under current editor Bill Keller, who has been in charge for 53 months, has only won six Pulitzers. In just 21 months under former editor Howell Raines, the news section won seven Pulitzers. The Times has been shut out of Pulitzers for its Iraq war coverage under Keller thus far. All of this adds up to one simple conclusion: Bill Keller is a more attractive man than Howell Raines. [NYO]

Did you know that NYT executive editor Bill Keller has a new book out? That's OK, neither did anyone else! It's called Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela, and it's sold 926 copies, according to BookScan. It's a biography for children from ages 9 to 12. As Portfolio points out, it didn't really get any press. Except, of course, for two mentions in the Times. [Portfolio Mixed Media]

The New Republic's story-of-the-story of the New York Times' story of how John McCain might've fucked lobbyist Vicki Iseman is up, and, as could probably be predicted, it's the story of Bill Keller being a total pussy and not letting his reporters go with all the awesome juicy stuff they were totally sure they had nailed down, provable or not. It's also the story of how now, basically, the standard for publication at the Times has slipped measurably closer to, say, ours.