Think you’ve got it bad as a writer? Try being a music journalist when not one, but two of the industries you rely on are struggling.

“If you want a career writing about music, my advice to you would probably be medical school, maybe law,” joked Billboard editorial director Bill Werde in our @MediaBeat interview. “Music journalism was one of the hardest hit forms of journalism, I think, because once upon a time, you really needed a critic to tell you if you wanted to spend money on an album… Obviously today, you can hear everything all the time, usually even before it’s released.”

Watch the full interview for @bwerde‘s tips on scoring that Beyonce byline, and to find out why the  Kanyes of the world are making his job (and Matt Lauer‘s) just a tad more, well, interesting.

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

Part 2: Billboard‘s Bill Werde Takes On Idol, Reality TV
Part 3: Bill Werde: ‘iTunes’ Success Does Not Equal Billboard‘s Detriment’

First Lady Gaga got a monthly column gig with V magazine. But that wasn’t enough for the fame monster! Now she will serve as global guest editor-in-chief for all May 17 editions of Metro, a free subway news daily. She will edit Metro’s editions in 20 countries from the London office of Metro World News, Metro’s central news desk.

New York Observer reports that in addition to editing/writing a feature, she will comment on stories throughout the issue and contribute sidebars.

As part of the global guest editorship, Metro is also running a contest where one reader will be chosen as Lady Gaga’s editorial assistant. Admit it, you’re interested.

Proving once again that if you’re famous people will let you do anything, Lady Gaga has been hired by V magazine to write a monthly column. Her first piece will appear in the May 12th issue.

If you’re a fan, there’s even more to this story. According to WWD,  she’s asking people to submit drawings that will run alongside her articles. If your three-dimensional box or house with a squiggly smoke line emerging from a chimney is noteworthy, you can send them to her via email at drawnthisway[at]vmagazine[dot]com.

Did you hear about what Lady Gaga did? Of course you did! She does things all the time! Things that Madonna did throughout the 80s, but who cares? She makes people talk and no matter how sick FishbowlNY is of her, we have to discuss her too.

The latest Gaga news is that she’s featured in the first iPad app from Vogue, called Vogue Cover Exclusive. The app, which costs 99 cents, isn’t built like most magazine apps. Rather than include everything from the print edition, it centers on the cover story – in this case, Lady Gaga – and offers completely new content on that subject.

For the debut, Lady Gaga gives an audio diary while on tour, a video interview and other exclusive features.

We hear Gaga even gives a tour of her Grammy egg to Anna Wintour, and things get a little sassy when Wintour insults the carpeting.

• TVNewser: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is going to be hosting a President’s Day special focusing on Bill Clinton. Here’s hoping Clinton busts out the sunglasses and sax for old times sake.
• GalleyCat: What’s happening in Egypt is both scary and fascinating. Add this bit of news to what you’ve already digested about that story: Young people are protecting libraries from rioters.
• AllTwitter: Lady Gaga will probably reach eight million followers sometime this week. But hey, your 37 followers is nothing to be ashamed about – you keep telling them about your toe fungus – they need to know!

With five Grammy award nominations, a spot on Time’s 100 most influential people of the year list, and eight MTV Video Music Awards in the past 12 months, Lady Gaga had a wildly successful 2010.  One more accolade that the “Fame Monster” can add to her resume is an undisputed spot atop the 2010 print throne.  According to WWD, an Audit Bureau of Circulations report reveals that Gaga-centric issues sold better than any other celeb and the trend is not expected to slow down in 2011.

Lady Gaga’s July 8 Rolling Stone double issue sold 245,000 copies, nearly three times above the title’s January-September 2010 average.  Gaga’s April 2010 Cosmopolitan was a major hit as well, selling 1.7 million copies and making its mark as the magazine’s leading issue through October.  Lady Gaga was responsible for the year’s second most successful issue of Vanity Fair as her September cover sold 450,000 copies and trailed only Angelina Jolie’s cover.   She also opened 2010 with a bang by appearing in the January issue of Elle, one which held up as their third highest seller through October.

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Wanna save traditional media? Just talk to a crazy musician for your next feature. Seriously, the more Kanye stages an impromptu award show protest or Lady Gaga tells Oprah of her pre-Pandora dreams of being painted blue, the more I love it!

And, when it comes to hot quotable messes, it doesn’t get any better than the Playboy Interview with John Mayer. The musician and tabloid staple’s musings on sex, his childhood, and more sex is sure to keep him a trending topic. (Or in Twitter time, at least the next couple hours.)

Read our top five Mayer-isms after the jump. Note: because the interview truly is worth reading in its entirety, the following is taken unabashedly out of context.

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When false reports of the deaths of Lady Gaga or Jeff Goldblum get blasted all over Twitter, it becomes a trend piece in The New York Times. “The Internet Who Cried Wolf” serves as a gentle reminder that not everything you read online is true.

The media equivalent of course, would be Anna Wintour‘s departure from Vogue. There have been so many rumors, sworn testimonies and first-hand accounts of the editrix leaving Condé Nast that sometimes it seems like she’s hanging on there just to spite the morning’s headlines.

But recently, the magazine departure watchdogs have had a new person of interest: BusinessWeek.com‘s editor-in-chief John Byrne. Except this time, the gossipers were right. Turns out, Byrne is leaving the Bloomberg LP-owned business magazine to launch a digital media company in San Francisco.

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