Viacom finally got it together enough yesterday to address the fact that they'd seriously mishandled the announcement of major cuts to freelancer benefits."We understand there are many valid questions, concerns and bad feelings around the new policies for freelance, in-house and project-based temporary employees and the way they were communicated," reads a memo issued late yesterday from executive vice president of human resources, JoAnne Griffith. "We are listening closely to the response and moving to quickly address the questions and concerns by making some immediate changes, based on your feedback." Was that really so hard? Where have you been all week, JoAnne?

Each Friday, NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller and 'Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom. This week, we hear about the quietly-revamped movie pages: "Web sites need to be reference sources. So every actor, director, cinematographer, gaffer — and every film — has its own reference page, with encyclopedic and reliable data supplied by our terrific colleagues at Baseline Studio Systems. Thanks to Baseline, Our movie database now has over 900,000 people and 200,000 movie titles. Like IMDB, except that it's true. Want to know who mixed the sound for Titanic? No problem. Did Bosley Crowther like the 1962 version of Billy Budd? Easy to find out. Do you like trailers? You could lose yourself here for days. 'All in all,' says Ariel Kaminer, 'I really do think it stands as the best movie site in America — and that's a title with a LOT of competition.' Anybody want to argue?"

"MTVN Freelance, Temp and Animation employees hired on or before October 12th that are paid through in-house payroll and have received a direct deposit receipt or paycheck on all four of the following consecutive dates: October 18, October 25, November 1 and November 8." And there's more! Full memo after the jump.

Was MTV trying to get away with snowing contractors into signing away benefits by just sort of, you know, not mentioning it and hoping for the best? "We were distributed the paperwork and told that we were to fill it out because MTV was changing payroll companies. There was no mention of the insurance change AT ALL," says one freelancer, who was not pleased to learn of the change in her work conditions from the Internets. Full memo after the jump.

Until now, the New York Times matched employee contributions to charity at $1.50 for every staff dollar donated. In January, the company will reduce that rate, and only match non-profit donations dollar-for-dollar—up to $3000 a year per person, according to a company-wide email from publisher Arthur Sulzberger sent this morning.

About an hour ago, New York Times staffers received a holiday gift from executive editor Bill Keller—an announcement of layoffs! The cuts will come from the newsroom "for the first time in recent memory," according to the memo. A dozen "support positions" will be eliminated from the newsroom, along with "a number" of clerical administrative jobs; next year, several admin management positions will be cut. The Times apparently put a hiring freeze into place several weeks ago, and "except for those jobs that are critically important to our future ambitions, we intend to enforce it," Keller writes. Full memo after the jump.

Yesterday Radar seized on a memo circulating at the Times which would abolish the use of story datelines indicating when a reporter actually wrote a story, as opposed to when the story was printed. "The "significant advantages" include doing "away with datelines that are several days old, which can make a story seem stale rather than immediate," Radar reports. Ah yes, much better to seem immediate than to actually be immediate.[Radar]

We always hear about layoffs in production departments, or foreign bureaus, or "a little bit of everywhere," in the case of MTV—but it's rare these days that you get to see an outfit chop up its web staff. But that's what Court TV is doing right this second—with fellow Time Warner company CNN.com going big on plans for CNN.com/crime, Court TV (soon to be called truTV) no longer needs 16 of the staffers at their website. 15 will remain.

The New York Times will celebrate its new headquarters twice—first this Thursday for employees, with "complimentary coffee and tea all day," and then, you know, a party for the actual fancy people next Monday. That's the party during which the building will "limit access" to staffers, it sounds like, which should make that whole "coming to work to get your job done" thing mildly irritating. Or fun! For reporters, sorta like wending your way out of the Green Zone, except with cocktails and Gail Collins and Gay Talese instead of IEDs and "insurgents."

Internal memos offer, if not juicy gossip, telling insight into the character of an organization. Not so with the missive Microsoft lead negotiator Kevin Johnson sent around to explain his Facebook triumph. It's just more "win-win-win" blather that you'd expect from a salesman. Johnson tells coworkers the deal will demonstrate to advertisers that Microsoft is a winner and that for publishers "it is further evidence of Microsoft's commitment to long-term innovation." I'm sure the thousands of geeks in Microsoft's R&D labs are stewing over that line — not that they've come up with anything even vaguely as cool as Facebook. But whatever. We know the real reason Johnson sent the memo. To get this reply from Ballmer — the CEO's actual words: "Great job you really pulled this together unbelievably." Cha-ching!

At midnight, Conde Nast Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman sent out an email about the editor of their website leaving. Her message? Don't believe the things media reporters write! Isn't it cute when journalists go management and turn on the press?

Each Friday, deputy managing editor Jon Landman and NYT.com general manager Vivian Schiller send out an email to New York Times staffers on the subject of innovation of a digital nature. We read it to take the temperature inside the paper. Some notable moments from this week's installment: "We are way past the point of arguing (aren't we?) about whether blogs or articles make better journalism. The answer, of course, is 'Both.'" And: "Webbies like to say, 'Iterate.' It gets worse! They love to say 'Iterative.' Horrible words. Great ideas. The point is, you can start something on the web that isn't perfect. While it sits there, you make it better. (Try that in the newspaper—by the time you iterate, it's fish wrap.)"

"Yesterday we experienced a network failure for three plus hours, resulting in loss of phones, email and critical network-dependent systems, including those necessary to produce the news and advertising content for today's newspaper," says the in-house New York Times memo this morning on their tech failures. But the troupers pulled through and made a paper! " We delivered to distribution centers and retail outlets at normal to slightly late arrival times."

How smart are reporters at the New York Times? Well, at least some of them don't know you can't put metal in the microwaves. Seriously. What follows is a memo of shame that went around the office this morning, after a little fire on the second floor of their nice new building.

You'd think that New York would've learned something from the Times' mishandled move to its new building, but alas, it appears that the move down to Varick and Grand isn't going quite as well as perhaps Adam Moss would've liked. Oh, and bloggers? Don't think you'll be able to "work" from home anytime soon! Coen, Rovzar, Ozersky, Gallagher et al: We're looking at you. The full memo follows.

This afternoon, a memo went out from New York Times Magazine head Gerald Marzorati. It seems that staffers and freelancers have been flying business and first class while on assignment. Clearly this cannot stand! Although, why not? The magazine and those money-minters T, Play, and Key are raking it in for the business. (Seriously. The issue of T: Women coming out this Sunday is the biggest issue of a Times magazine since 1984. 183.3 pages of ads! Surely that can pay for a flight or two to Milan!) No matter! They have to find some way to pay those juicy word count rates. Approval to fly business class will only be granted after being run past Times Managing Editor John Geddes or Assistant Managing Editor Bill Schmidt. Got that? The full memo follows.

The New York Times, which has been slow to adapt its user technology to these newfangled "Mac" computers (not that any of us really wanted to use the PC-only Times Reader, but, you know, principles), learned yesterday that perhaps Macs are a good thing in one way.

Hot on the heels of Marcus Brauchli's unreassuringly reassuring email to the Wall Street Journal staff is Dow Jones CEO Rich Zannino's even less reassuring email. It's full of platitudes like "The bright future for Dow Jones is built on your commitment." In other words: Please don't quit en masse! Also, the deal was great for shareholders. Like himself! The full memo after the jump.

This morning, Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli sent out an internal memo to his troops, basically cautioning them not to rush to judgment and assuring them that Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the paper's parent company "won't change what we do in the newsroom." Uh, yeah, good luck with that! The full memo after the jump. (Nice sign-off, btw!)

The New York Times glossy quarterly T is expanding! And, according to this morning's memo from T Queen Stefano Tonchi (pictured!), there will be more and more T in your life in the coming months. (Also: a special food issue of the NYT mag in November 2008, edited by Mrs. Latte herself.) Q Princess Horacio Silva will be heading up the T website! Omg omg omg. Gay! We love! Anyway, at this point it's basically T and the New York Times Magazine keeping the rest of the paper afloat, so it's no wonder that they're trying to turn everything into a giant T dance. (Sorry!) Memo follows.