"It took me a year and a half to realize that I'm not just going to stumble into a great job," the Brown '07 grad told Newsweek. Did Career Services forget to tell you about the paradigm shift?

Lost fans are rabid, but there are just as many people who haven't seen it at all. So Newsweek decided to have their employees who have never watched it before try to explain what's going on. And it's hilarious.

Obama's upcoming Newsweek editorial ("Why Haiti Matters") is online. Near the end: "In the aftermath of disaster, we are reminded that life can be unimaginably cruel....That "time and chance" happen to us all." He could've just ended it there. [Newsweek]

Barack Obama will "write" a Newsweek cover story on Haiti. That is stupid.

Why, oh, why did Newsweek allow Bill Clinton to contribute to a feature called The Decade's Happiest Endings?

• It's official: Will Ferrell is the most overpaid man in show business. [THR]
• Layoffs: BusinessWeek's cuts kicked off today; layoffs now loom at Time Inc. as the company awaits word on how many volunteers will accept buyout packages; and there's a bit more detail on this week's cuts at the AP.
• MSNBC's Joe Scarborough isn't exactly on fire at the moment. [NYO]
• Palinitis: The ex-governor's sit-down with Oprah on Monday generated the talk show queen her highest ratings in two years; Fox News clowns Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are now at war over their respective Palin interviews; and people are still talking about that Palin Newsweek cover, for some reason.
• Vivendi has tossed a last-minute complication into the NBC deal. [NYT]
• Times reporter Jodi Kantor has landed a seven-figure book deal. [NYO]
• Breaking! The Emmys are moving from September to August. [THR]
• CNN's Candy Crowley is speaking out about her weight loss. At last! [LAT]

The main problem with Sarah Palin's beef against Newsweek is this: Palin says "you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin," but books don't have skin, Sarah. Also, she trades on her looks incessantly.

• A big round of layoffs landed at the Associated Press today. [BI, NYT]
• Budget Travel isn't shutting down, contrary to rumors. But its owner is looking to sell the magazine or find new investors, however. [AdAge]
• Time.com's managing editor, Josh Tyrangiel, will become the editor of BusinessWeek when Bloomberg LP takes over next month. [BW, WWD]
• The NYPD raided four newspapers as part of a union corruption probe. [AP]
• Is Newsweek's new Sarah Palin cover sexist? Or just funny? [HP, Wrap]
• Because print media is booming and newspapers will be around forever, Mort Zuckerman's Daily News spent $150 million on a new printing plant. [NYT]
• A documentary about media reporters at the Times? Oh, yes, indeed. [NYO]
• Bonnie Fuller's new Web venture launched today. [HollywoodLife.com]
• TV: Oprah GBF Nate Berkus is getting his own daytime show; and Bob Saget will host an A&E reality series in which he'll "explore strange subcultures."
• Rupert Murdoch probably isn't very popular with the blind today. [Gawker]

A tipster forwarded us this adios note that a Newsweek employee sent out today. Apparently the recent layoffs aren't proceeding so smoothly.

• John King will be replacing Lou Dobbs at 7pm on CNN. [WP, NYT]
• CNN execs had been looking to part ways with Dobbs for many months now, although CNN president Jon Klein is denying that all the anti-Dobbs fervor had anything to do with his leaving. Meanwhile, Dobbs' departure is expected to leave up to 30 people without jobs. [TDB, NYT, AP]
• Dobbs' first post-CNN interview will be with Bill O'Reilly. Naturally. [DF]
• Iconix, the apparel company that owns Candie's, Badgley Mischka, and Rocawear, among other brands, is in talks to buy Playboy Enterprises. [BN]
• Bloomberg LP is ducking out of paying severance to BW staffers. [AdAge]
• A dozen staffers were laid off at Newsweek today. [Gawker]
• Martin Scorsese will receive the DeMille award at the Golden Globes. [LAT]
• Katie Couric is assembling media power lists now, apparently. [Forbes]

Newsweek laid off "about a dozen" editorial staffers Wednesday. The weekly posted a 48 percent drop in revenue in the third quarter, resulting in a $4.3 million loss. Memo from editor Jon Meacham after the jump.

In your finally Friday media column: BBC execs must struggle by on $150k, Michael Wolff looks in the mirror and compliments himself, rumors of office closures at Newsweek, and more on the Time Inc. layoffs.

The denizens of cheesy Thrillist junkets were once only shameless bloggers, but now it looks like grandiose outlets are getting on the free-trip teat, too.

Maziar Bahari, the Canadian-Iranian Newsweek reporter who has been detained in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since his arrest while covering the nation's post-election uprising in June, has arrived safely in London in time for the birth of his first child.

Last week, Barack Obama stood before the world with the prime ministers of Britain and France and accused Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon. Today, nameless spooks are telling the New York Times not so much. What's going on?

Iran's been amping up its nuclear program at a secret facility, which the U.S. knew about but wasn't saying anything until now. Which makes it awfully unfortunate for Newsweek, which reported "exclusively" last week that Iran's nuke program was dormant.

While you were sleeping, America: the CIA performed "mock executions" on torture detainees! You know, to scare them! Mr. Torture Beat 2009, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, reported the CIA's upcoming release of "long-suppressed" reports detailing instances. How bad are we talking?

In your sizzling Tuesday media column: the future of the media is paid, Newsweek fights the power in Iran, another mag mogul kicks BusinessWeek's tires (made of paper), and Dan Rather's madder'n a lake trout with fiery testicles, at CBS.

Newsweek has declared the end of the Great Recession, which is great news for the 15 million unemployed people. Or is it? Because the magazine has also cobbled together an online only feature on how "fun" the Great Depression was.

The way Newsweek employees get fired now: Shamelessly and publicly, via mass emails from their boss singing the praises of their incoming replacements while encouraging their co-workers to wish their shit-canned asses "bon chance" on the way out the door.