• Time Inc. is likely to cut as many as 400 jobs next year, maybe as early as the end of January. There is no joke to be made here. [NYP]
• How much did Mort Zuckerman want to hang onto to the News's Les Goodstein? Enough to — perish the thought — interrupt a vacation to try to convince him to stay. [WWD]
• In the crystal ball: Yahoo and Google will build news divisions in 2006, and the Bancrofts will finally sell the Journal — to an alliance of WashPostCo and Warren Buffett. [Forbes]
• Mag circ shit continues hitting the fan. [BW]
• Jon Friedman spent the strike watching NY1, and he developed a crush on the stations — and on transit reporter Bobby Cuza. [MW]

You've got to hand it to the New York Post. Not only did Rupert Murdoch's scrappy tab pull off a major coup yesterday by hiring away the top business exec at the rival Daily News, but in so doing the Posties also pioneered an entirely new recruiting technique. Usually, companies seeking new talent make sure to lavish them in praise and compliments. The Post, however, managed to lure Les Goodstein with insults.

In an email to staff this afternoon, Time Out New York editor-in-chief Joe Angio announced that he's leaving his job to focus fulltime on marketing and promote his indie documentary on Melvin Van Peebles, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), which was well received at the Tribeca Film Festival this year.

• Bush summoned Sulzberger and Keller to Washington earlier this month in a last-ditch attempt to get them not to run the domestic-spying story, reports Jon Alter. [Newsweek]
• And, says Greg Mitchell, as the Times's handling of the domestic-spying story increasingly seems to be another major management fuckup at the paper, George W. Bush proves he is the true Teflon president. [E&P]
• Bigtime journalists aren't paid enough, argues Slate's Daniel Gross, who, charmingly, hasn't yet realized that of course we'll never make enough to live like real human beings anywhere in New York City. [Slate]
• Redesigned TV Guide, which now looks basically nothing like TV Guide, is doing great numbers. But they may not be great enough. [WWD]
• Carl Icahn, who hasn't been happy with Time Warner management in a while, ain't at all happy with the proposed TW-Google deal. [NYP]
• Radar published what might have been the best sentence of magazine writing this year: "In 2004, a man playing Pluto was run over and killed by a 'princess float' in the Share a Dream Come True parade at Disney World's Magic Kingdom." Plus Peter Carlson's other "wild and wacky" magazine moments from 2005. [WP]

Oh, those media companies are really full of the Christmas spirit.

We got a nice little press release from Time Inc. an hour or so ago. A corporate reorganization! Two execs were appointed co-COOs, working under chairman Ann Moore, which led to some other shifts of responsibility among others. It seemed like good news for the people involved, important news for people on the business side of the mags, and, ultimately, nothing really too exciting for us.

From the Ed2010 newsletter:

The National Law Journal reports today that the new top hourly rate charged by a U.S. lawyer is an even grand. Of course, that's for a 70-year-old firm chairman and former attorney general, a series of credentials we're unlikely to ever have after our name.

Sixth months ago we were leaked — and we published — New York Sun deputy managing editor Robert Messenger's plans for a comprehensive overhaul of what he saw as a foundering newspaper. We were also leaked then — but we didn't publish — Messenger's musings on his dissatisfaction with his Sun job and his hopes of someday moving to The Atlantic instead.

The Post carries word today that Ken Tucker, New York magazine's movie critic, is leaving to return from whence he came: Entertainment Weekly. We have no comment on that, except to note the disposition of four relatively prominent Adam Moss hires:

TV Guide, as we all know, is dying. No on needs a weekly magazine of TV listings any longer. Solution? As of April, it was: Launch Inside TV, a woman-oriented celebrity-ish mag.

Without either William Shawn's New Yorker bang or William Whitworth's Atlantic whimper, Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's for nearly 30 years, announced today that he's stepping down. They have no successor yet, he'll still be writing for the magazine, and, certainly, he's had an amazing run that deserves to be commended.

So you've got 10 years of experience as a manager in an editorial environment. You've got top-notch editing, editorial evaluation, managing, and business development skills. You want nothing more than a good opportunity to liaise with a publisher. And yet you're sitting at home, alone, unemployed and unfulfilled. You're checking the Mediabistro job boards regularly, looking for that perfect gig, but it just doesn't show up. If only, you despair, there were some special, secret job that's much too important too post on Mediabistro. But there's no such possibility, you know: Everyone posts their jobs on the 'Bistro.

A job-seeking Time Warner mole today passes along the listing for our dream job:

• We're not sure what's more disturbing: Heidi Klum's poor little baby, or the fact that In Touch is an international publication. [The Superficial]
• Jon Fine eagerly waves his hand, screams, "Pick me! Pick me!" in an effort to get a screenwriting gig on the inevitable Judy Miller/Valerie Flame movie. [FineOnMedia]
• Manhattan is the most expensive place in the United States. Also, bear shits in woods. [CNN]
• High-profile media mogul seeks submissive gimp for office play fantasies. [Craigslist]

Fridays, as we all know, are for job hunting, which makes the employment troughs at Mediabistro all the more enjoyable. Today, "bespoke celebrity news agency" (we thought only Saville Row suits were "bespoke," but whatever) Viva Press is looking for some new talent:

Anecdotally, we've noticed this trend even among our formerly perpetually unemployed writer friends.