Craig Moon's retirement as USA Today's president was "largely unexpected within Gannett," the Wall Street Journal reports. Apparently Moon couldn't work for a paper that is having trouble giving away copies.

The New York Times' management is full of good liberals, and they really don't like to fire writers. But cutting salaries and folding sections isn't as easy as it looks. Or as effective.

In your ideal Tuesday media column: Forbes layoffs, Havana goes dark, Brian Tierney's a greedy rat bastard, career suicide, and Tina Brown's a communist:

• The Chicago Sun-Times filed for bankruptcy protection today. [BN, NYT]
• Nielson is planning to cut 1,600 jobs, or 5% of its workforce. [AdAge]
• NBC is keeping the lights on at Friday Night Lights, after all. [NYT]
• Because it has precious other good news to report as it sits in fourth place, NBC says it saved $2 million last year by "going green." Congrats. [AP]
• MTV has ordered up four more seasons of The Real World. [THR]
• Sad news, soap fans: CBS is thinking about pulling the plug on Guiding Light, the longest-running daytime drama on television. [NYM]
• The MPAA reports global box office revenues were up 5.2% in 2008. [THR]
• Disney's TV unit has inked a distribution deal with YouTube. [NYT]
• How bad is the situation at CNN? "It's gotten so bad that Fox's Bill O'Reilly has actually taken to saying kind things about CNN, possibly out of pity." [MM]

It's just the thing to do these days: the Sun-Times Media Group, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times and dozens of smaller community papers, filed for bankruptcy this morning. Thanks, Conrad Black!

Detroit's two newspapers apparently needed confirmation that no longer delivering their paper most days was a terrible idea. They got it: GM's CEO was fired the first day they stopped delivering.

In your blustery Monday media column: The NYT's folding its City section, Sam Zell's a white devil, Fulcrum and Brandweek are teetering, and Dylan Ratigan's a populist:

Hey whoa what is this, it seems that some newspaper companies in Europe are not doing too bad? How is this possible? They have a secret:

• Mark Bowden's 11,000-word profile of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. for the May issue of Vanity Fair is now online. And it ain't pretty. [VF]
• In other Times news, the paper is scrapping its "City" section and has shut down the International Herald Tribune website. [NYO, E&P]
• For the first time, CNN will finish March behind MSNBC and Fox News. [AP]
• He's only been on the air two months, but Glenn Beck's "conservative populist anger" has already put him right behind Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. [NYT]
• Adweek, MediaWeek and Brandweek may be folded together. [NYP]
• News Corp. is hiring ex-AOL CEO Jon Miller to lead its digital division. [WSJ]
• The Huffington Post is launching an investigative journalism site. [AP]
• MTV is bringing back music videos! Sort of. [NYT]

The New York Times has been demanding Google welfare, which would artificially promote the newspaper's stories in search results. Yet inept Times webmasters just killed hundreds of thousands of their own Google hits.

John Walter was a longtime newspaperman and a founding editor of USA Today. He died last September, but not before writing this bullshit-free essay on the three guys who killed newspapers. The short version:

This staff memo went out at the New York Times today—TV beat reporter Jacques Steinberg will join the National Desk and write a blog on college admissions.

Intrepid New York Times Russia correspondent (and former Marine!) CJ Chivers was snatched by the KGB this morning! Or was he? Read on for the details of this most insignificant international incident:

Russia! says that the Russian press reported that Chivers was "detained" by the KGB when he tried to enter into the disputed territory of Ossetia, and subsequently sent packin' back to Moscow. Crushing press freedom! International disputes! Editors called from New York, alarmed! Actually, Chivers told them, he and his fixer were just forced to sit around at the border because the border guards' supervisor was "in the shower":

In your rubble-strewn Friday media column: rumors of carnage at Budget Travel, threats at a medical journal, advertising havoc at ESPN mag, and editors destroy everything:

Yesterday the New York Times cut all of its non-union salaries by 5%—but it had to meet with the union to ask its members to go along as well. They better!

A group of British volunteers distributed a very slick-looking fake Financial Times in London today in a stunt expressly modeled on that fake New York Times put out by the Yes Men last year.

In your bitter Thursday media column: Barack Obama to speak Spanish on the teevee, assorted sickening reminiscences and developments from the dying newspaper industry, and Perez Hilton is the future:

For your perusal. The salary cut memo:

• It's been a dark day at the New York Times: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Janet Robinson announced a five percent salary reduction for all editors and said 100 employees on the business side would be laid off. [Gawker, NYO, NYT]
• Blender has been shuttered; April will be the mag's last issue. [AdAge]
• The Washington Post is offering buyouts again. And if enough people don't take 'em, the paper says a round of layoffs will follow. [Politico]
• Richard Beckman is out as Condé Nast's marketing chief; he'll be heading up the company's Fairchild Fashion Group instead. [WSJ, Crains]
• It's getting a little stormy over at the Weather Channel! [NYP]
• Rod Blagojevich may have some sort of reality show in the works. [CST]
• ABC News has settled a lawsuit filed against Diane Sawyer. [NYP]
• Barry Diller is the proud new owner of SportsPickle.com. [PaidContent]
• The most newspaper-friendly city in America? Rochester! [E&P]

The New York Times has completed the first step: admitting it has a problem. The internal memo is out, confirming today's rumored pay cuts (and layoffs). This is big news.