Essence magazine is, like, Glamour for black people. It is a completely bland and inoffensive publication. Still, given the racial politics in America and the general dearth of big black media outlets, Essence's moves are scrutinized through a more sociopolitical lens than Glamour's would be. Which makes everyday office scandals all the more entertaining.

In your finally Friday media column: Jay Carney is an absolute firecracker, big changes at Ebony and Essence, Michael Calderone moves to HuffPo, Jay Rosen opines at length, and Bill O'Reilly does something good for once in his miserable life.

In your springy Thursday media column: Nir Rosen and Jeffrey Goldberg deserve each other, turnover and understanding at the New York Times, Essence weaves, Helen Thomas regrets nothing, and a Meet the Press veteran passes away.

When the media becomes the news, everyone is entertained. Media scandals are the best scandals of all, for their enjoyable mix of forced professionalism and palpable discomfort. Come; let us look back at the year's ten best.

In your icy Monday media column: Fox News anonymice reveal obvious scandals, turmoil at Essence, Bernie Sanders is moved to insanity by Keith Olbermann, Peter Chernin's big plans, and Euna Lee says she considered suicide in prison.

In your unemployed Friday media column: The NYT magazine editor search continues, top editors shuffle in and out of magazines elsewhere, an ill-advised warning for young journalists, and Robin Givhan on the Essence RACE SCANDAL.

Oooo, it's a racial-cultural-media controversy of the most delicious sort! Essence magazine has hired a white lady as its new fashion director. Is that bad? Or, perhaps, not bad? We'll tell you what we think below—then, everyone argue!

Essence had substantial layoffs last November. Now, the beauty director's retiring, the beauty editor has left, and we hear an assistant was fired and the whole fashion team is AWOL today. Fashion PR people are worried! Know more? Email us.

In your thumping Thursday media column: Glenn Beck does not die on the operating table, more rumor-details on the Essence layoffs, Fortune and SI get hacked, and a dying newspaper goes glossy, for unknown reasons.

In your completely laid-off Wednesday media column: details on more Time Inc. layoffs and buyouts at People and Essence, Fortune Small Business folds, and various ways that magazine publishers are terrorists.

More layoffs today in the wonderful world of media: In addition to cuts at EW and Essence, 8-10 people were let go yesterday from InStyle. Blackbook canned its creative director. Jim Cramer's NYC-based finance site, TheStreet.com, closed its offices in San Francisco. Bauer Publishing laid off five editorial people from Life & Style. Forbes dismissed staffers assigned to ForbesAutos.com, scaled back ForbesTraveler.com, and closed its conference business. But despite rumors to the contrary, Nylon says it is not closing down, so it isn't all bad news today.

We asked earlier for tips about layoffs at Time Inc.'s Essence, and have since heard about 12 people were let go — around 10 from marketing and business and two from editorial. A shared services group on the same floor, which services several magazines, lost four more. It's been nearly a month now of watching Time Inc. layoffs unfurl, and we can't help but wonder if the magazine group might not have spared survivors some pain and the company some bad publicity by executing a little faster.

Entertainment Weekly took its turn in the Time Inc. layoff machine today with 15 editorial layoffs, according the the Observer [UPDATE: Another source tells us the number is 22, including the research chief, two librarians, and "a bunch of AEs"]. And they didn't even offer anyone a chance to volunteer for buyouts—they just got fired. We also hear that Essence may be having its layoffs today, too. If you have more details, email us.

Sometimes you can see the moment when a YouTuber graduates from a sloppy wannabe comedian to promising talent in one breakout video. Weirdly enough, Adrien Chen's mock video application to Essence Magazine hasn't even broken a thousand views on Vimeo or YouTube. Maybe everyone stopped halfway through and missed the racism (not racist!) joke that ties the whole thing together.

From Rush & Molloy today: