"Newspaper boom" in Brazil. Go there now! [Huffpo]

Open bars are de riguer at media parties, and they're just about the only fringe benefit of working in this godforsaken industry. But what happens when the parties themselves start to disappear, like what's happening this holiday season? NO MORE FREE BOOZE! Portfolio's Mixed Media reports that there is a new group called "ASSME: the American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites"—which I guess I should probably join—that will carry on the noble tradition of an open bar in season where everyone else is a god-damned Scrooge. If you're laid-off and broke, you can still keep on drinking—at least for one magical night.

♦ David Pecker's AMI, the publisher of the Star and National Enquirer, has been near bankruptcy for months. Now it's one step closer. [NYP]
♦ The details of Judith Regan's settlement with News Corp. have been revealed: It cost the company $10.75 million to make her go away. [Bloomberg]
♦ Janet Robinson says there are no plans to sell the Times. [E&P]
♦ A brief explanation for why newspapers are so screwed right now. [NYT, AP]
♦ An increasingly desperate OK! has cut the price of the mag. [NYP]
♦ The reorganization of Random House will likely leave Sonny Mehta the big winner. [NYO]
♦ Les Moonves on the state of network TV: "The model ain't broke." [THR]
♦ Gus Van Sant's Milk was named by the New York Film Critics Circle as the best film of 2008. [THR]

This ROD BLAGOJEVICH scandal is just awesome for newspapers. I mean, who would have thought the Tribune company would ever have a starring role in another political scandal even as a reporting entity, much less as some sort of "powerful" media outlet that inspired fear and hatred in elected officials? The Chicago Trib editorial page was what you were worried about, ROD BLAGOJEVICH, really? Well that suits the Chicago Trib editorial page just fine!:

Wiretap transcripts yesterday indicated that Tribune Company honcho Sam Zell might have subtly conveyed (wink-wink) that he might just have to restructure (wink wink) one or more bothersome Chicago Trib editorial writers out of their jobs in response to demands from Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was delaying a deal to buy the Chicago Cubs from cash-strapped Zell. Insanely, it has emerged that the whole thing was Blago's evil wife's idea ("hold up that fucking Cubs shit. . . fuck them"), but also that it seems to have gone nowhere.

Though apologist analyst were apparently out in force, and though the firm bragged about selling $1 million in Barack Obama knicknacks (whee!), there was no hiding the New York Times Company's financial distress at a bank's media conference in New York Tuesday. The most alarming report in the wake of the event: Word that the Times will try to renegotiate at least some of its more than $1 billion in debt and is preparing to do without much of a $400 million credit line expiring in May.

Let us not, at this crucial moment, forget how much shit the Tribune Co. is in. Executives at the Tribune Co. are quite literally wading to work today through rivers of bad news—deep, deep rivers. Yesterday they freaking went bankrupt. Today they find themselves smack dab in the middle of Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH's outrageous corruption scandal—because gnomish asshole Tribune CEO Sam Zell allegedly agreed in principle to fire a troublesome editorial page editor in exchange for $100 million in state money. Obvious question: Did Blago's corrupt scheme help drive Tribune into bankruptcy? We examine THE FACTS for you below!

Michael Sneed is a local gossip columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. And she's the latest journalist to be steamrolled by Chicago's US attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald—the same prosecutor who sent fallen Times reporter Judy Miller to jail! But Sneed won't have to go to court to try to keep her sources secret, because they're named right in the complaint against corrupt governor Rod Blagojevich. You see, Sneed was allegedly the guv's go-to reporter for planting fake rumors designed to help his scheme to extort money in exchange for Obama's replacement in the Senate. Oh, this one is good.

We talk about the ongoing death of the newspaper medium a lot around here, because we are evil bloggers who hate the paper industry and, furthermore, are personally responsible for every beat reporter laid off in the past five years, because their CEOs decided to cut their jobs after reading about how bad their industry is here, on the blogs. Well, at least we have numbers on our side—the side of darkness and unemployment. How bad is the outlook for newspapers in 2009? How about epically, historically, never-seen-before bad? Is that bad enough? Because that's how bad it is:

The employees of Tribune Co. have plenty of reasons to be infuriated today—they're the ones who own the company through their Employee Stock Ownership Plan, not Sam Zell, who put just $315 million of his own money into last year's $8 billion deal that gave him control of the company. But the bankruptcy filing contains one detail that stands out as the unkindest cut of all: Tribune still owes $11.2 million to the former CEO of Times-Mirror (which Tribune bought in 2000) Mark Willes—a man most famous for massive layoffs and an ethical scandal of historic proportions:

Dear readers: you may have heard that Sam Zell's Tribune Company recently filed for bankruptcy. Do not be alarmed! Just because the company is drowning in $12 billion in debt with few prospects for a revival of its fortunes is no reason to believe that it's anything but "business as usual" at the trusty Tribune. When Zell bought the company last year, employees were assured, "Going forward, employees participating in the [Employee Stock Ownership Plan] will be invested alongside Sam Zell, one of today’s most successful investors." Awesome! And the company has already assured everyone that there's no need to get upset by today's unfortunate, catastrophic turn of events:

The Tribune Company, owner of the LA Times and Chicago Tribune, has filed for bankruptcy. Bummer. Pretty much everyone saw this coming. The company is $12 billion in debt, its revenues are going steadily downward, it's been having round after round of layoffs, and it's run by an angry (but honest!) billionaire gnome and a Ron Jeremy doppelganger of questionable sanity. Its papers will keep publishing, but working journalists are sure to get even more royally screwed before this is all over—their pension plan actually owns the company. Key details below:

Gambling is the future of the media! Newspapers aren't much good to anybody looking to make a buck off investing in their stock—but that doesn't mean that you can't make your newspaper fortune through sweet, sweet gambling, come on now seven seven seven baby need a new pair of shoes, yea! After the jump, we've listed the half-dozen most famous economically challenged papers in the country, along with our official odds for their long-term survival. Place your bets, and give 5% to the house:

Layoffs and dividend cuts apparently aren't enough to get the New York Times Company out of the financial woods. The Times reports the company plans to mortgage or sell (and lease back) part of its shiny new Renzo Piano headquarters building, which cost half a billion dollars to build. It assigned Cushman & Wakefield the tricky task of finding someone willing to take a $225 million chance on a company whose debt is rated junk in a down market. The Times Company's timing is, once again, atrocious: The price of its old headquarters building tripled between when the company sold it in 2004 and three years later, when the newspaper finally moved into its new headquarters. That extra $350 million would sure come in handy now.

Sam Zell's Tribune Company is exploring a bankruptcy filing, the Wall Street Journal and Times are reporting. Profits have fallen faster than the media conglomerate can sell off assets, leaving the company in likely violation of debt covenants and scrounging to pay nearly $1 billion in interest. Of course, nearly two-thirds of the company's $12 billion debt comes from Zell's leveraged buyout of the Tribune last December. The cranky old real estate mogul is like a guy who bought his house with a subprime mortgage: He thought he could refinance before interest rates kicked in, but now the price of his home is plummeting and he's getting desperate.

The New York Daily News has trailed the Post's Page Six in the New York gossip wars for a long time. Now the paper is blowing up its gossip columns and starting over. Two major changes went down today. First, husband and wife gossip team Rush & Molloy announced this morning that they'll be moving from a daily column to a Sunday-only schedule, after more than 13 years. Second—and more dramatic—we hear that Jo Piazza, who wrote the paper's Full Disclosure column, has resigned.

Newsday, the Long Island paper that was bought by Cablevision for $680 million earlier this year in one of the worst-timed (and most unpopular) media purchases in recent memory, is unsurprisingly being forced to lay people off. The paper is cutting 100 jobs, about 5% of its total workforce. Details of the cuts, in that inimitable corporate internal layoff memo style, below:

It was hilariously revealed a couple weeks ago that hippie folk singer Ani DiFranco personally played a set for capitalist Wall Street Journal staffers in their actual building, for some reason. Well now, further hilarious elements of this story have emerged. Among them: There is an actual place called "The WSJ Cafe"; Ani DiFranco played there; and finally, the WSJ has a staffer named "Chris Farley," who interviewed the hippie singer, right there in the "WSJ Cafe." Click here for the a video of the encounter, which, inexplicably, exists. [WSJ via Jezebel]

♦ Newsday is slashing 100 jobs. [Newsday]
♦ More on the cutbacks at CNBC and some cost-cutting measures at OK! [NYP]
♦ Bill O'Reilly is giving up his syndicated radio show. [NYDN]
♦ The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg was ambushed by Bill O'Reilly operatives outside his apartment building. Confusion and hilarity ensues. [HuffPo]
♦ Oprah Winfrey was named the most powerful woman in entertainment as part of the Hollywood Reporter's "Power 100" issue. [THR]
♦ Neal Boulton, the attention-seeking former editor of Men's Fitness, is writing a book about life as a bisexual. [P6]
♦ Lauren Zalaznick says that NBC is not interesting in selling iVillage. [WWD]
♦ George Rush and Joanna Molloy are stepping down as daily gossips for the Daily News, but they'll stay on with the paper with a Sunday column. [NYDN]