In our coverage of the very quick melt down of media as we know it – we did a couple of posts about Christmas Eve layoffs at LA Weekly.

One anonymous tipster asked:

doesn’t nikki finke work at la weekly is her job safe (sic)

Sources tell us that Nikki Finke, “is a contract employee for the parent company Village Voice Media. She owns her blog but the contract is for LA Weekly to distribute it and to sell advertising for it.”

So yes, her job is safe. Even if LA Weekly buckles completely – there will be Deadline Hollywood Daily.

The charm of being a freelancer is that you lose your job as soon as it’s finished. So losing jobs becomes a part of your job. And the charm of being a contract employee is you can’t get fired (per se) – you can only quit.

Well, if anyone could have seen this year coming, it would be a professional psychic. A name psychic…like Sylvia Browne. No psychics are not just for talking to amorous schnauzers or Arubian MIAs. They can look into the future and give advice to believers and skeptics alike.

Amazing.

This is Ms. Browne on Montel Williams December 31, 2007.

“What’s the best investment for the new year?”

“Property.”

Oops.

From the always environmentally friendly Craigslist:

Environmental Website Looking for Good Writers (Beverly Hills)
Reply to: job-972684491@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-12-28, 8:37PM PST

We recently launched the new site www.EcoHomeResource.com. The site is dedicated to helping people create healthy home & work environments through inspiration and education.

I am looking for a person with great research and writing skills to contribute quality content to the site. The site is fully multi-media and can handle audio and video files and images. Having the ability to edit audio and video files is a plus.

The position is a non-paid internship. It is great for experience and the opportunity to have your quality writing featured on a respected environmental resource (afterall, it is one of the few growth industies right now). Also, it provides an opportunity for college credit if you are in school.

You will be needed 2-3 days per week. Specific days and hours are flexible. Offices are in Beverly Hills.

If you are interested, in your email response, please indicate why you think you would be a good candidate for the position. Thank you for your interest!
* Compensation: Non-paid internship

You know folks, no one ever asks janitors to work for free. Or crane operators. Or tow truck drivers…and especially not 3 days per week.

Ketzel Levine has been with NPR since the Carter Administration. Serious. She, according to the NYT, has been working at NPR since 1977.

So she was doing a series of stories about people getting laid off – what they do after that – the courage it takes and such.

Then, you’ve already guessed it – she gets laid off.

Yep. Almost funny. Kind of brutal.

From NYT:

Ms. Levine, who lives in Portland, Ore., said she had no idea what she would do next. “Every story that we all do, we’re always looking for the perfect ending,” she said. “And suddenly it was handed to me. It was not one of my choosing, but as a storyteller, what could make a better story?”

She should write a book about people winning the lottery and moving to St. Barts.

The Courage Campaign has set up a Flickr collection titled “Please don’t divorce…”

The entire slideshow is here.

So, not being content with ruining marriage…the gays now have their sights set on ruining divorce.

Hollywood did indeed go to the dogs with a $51.8 million four-day performance for Warner Bros.’ “Marley and Me,” which also put WB over $1.74 billion, eclipsing Sony’s $1.6 billion 2006 revenue, FBLA’s box office guru Steve Mason reports.

Brad Pitt‘s starring film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” followed at $39.1 million and Adam Sandler‘s comic turn for kiddies “Bedtime Stories” collected some $38.6 million to close out this post-Xmas stellar weekend.

Everyone complains about the Internet and its effect on the movie biz, but last weekend says movies are as big as ever. Maybe video will be the one that will suffer.

We post this because someone is going to ask,”Whatever happened to those JibJab dudes?”

And then you can say,”I saw their latest – like a 2008 review or whatever – and it was okay. I mean. I guess. It was no This Land…but hey, SNL sucked for entire decades and I still watched.”

Tom Cruise‘s attempt at an independent film had a good opening nationwide on Christmas day, but in Los Feliz at the local theater the small crowd that paid was only disappointed.

The film broke and the Los Feliz theater technicians couldn’t fix it. So a few went home with a free ticket for two to a new release.

FBLA hopes it’s not a sign of things to come for the film.

“Marley and Me,” starring a very-much-alive Owen Wilson, proved that the movie business, to renew an awful pun, is truly going to the dogs, box office analyst Steve Mason confirmed to FBLA.

The film, which took in $14.5 million on Christmas day, beat out Paramount’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Sony’s Tom Cruise affair “Valkyrie” and Disney’s Adam Sandler film, “Bedtime Stories,” to capture the Christmas crown.

The performance was a bit of an X-mas present for Fox, which grabbed the second-highest Christmas day performance, more than $5 million behind the Ben Stiller hit “Meet the Fockers.”

My guess is that “Marley and Me” needed to cast Barbra Streisand, or at least use a song of hers.

USA Network, bolstered by the success of Tony Shalhoub‘s detective series “Monk” and other shows like “Burn Notice” and “Psych,” has claimed the most-watched cable programming crown again, averaging about 2.8 million viewers in prime-time, the Hollywood Reporter said.

This had to be good news for NBC Universal, which has not had a stellar year at the box office.

NBC executives were jazzed that USA’s average was 463,000 viewers than the Disney Channel. But it also knocked Fox News, ESPN and CNN for a loop.

Hooray for Hollywood, indeed!