This week, we learned of two top magazine staffers, one publisher and one editor-in-chief, leaving their posts after just a few months on the job.

First came word that Susan Reed is leaving her spot as editor-in-chief at O, The Oprah Magazine after less than a year at the helm of the Hearst pub. Before joining O, Reed served as the editor-in-chief at Golf for Women for more than six years. She will be replaced by Time Inc.‘s Susan Casey.

Also this week, the New York Post reported that Francis Farrell will be leaving the publisher slot at Men’s Journal after less than six months. Farrell formerly worked as publisher National Geographic Traveler and joined the men’s magazine in October 2008. Farrell will be replaced by Matt Mastrangelo, the Post said.

The Post also reported that American Media, which publishes Star and National Enquirer has lost its CFO Dean Durbin after only a year and a half — not quite as short a stint as the others but a quick turnaround nonetheless.

Women’s Health, which has been subject of rumors recently, signed up Lisa Bain and Lesley Rotchford to serve as co-executive editors. The pair replaces Alison Gwinn who jumped to O, The Oprah Magazine last month.

The move is a promotion for Rotchford. She joined the Rodale publication last month as executive features director. Previously, she served as deputy editor at Cosmopolitan.

Bain jumps from Parenting where she served in the same position. She had been there for a decade.

No one is going anywhere! That at least appears to be today’s media news theme regarding the industry’s top dogs. We already told you that Bill Keller has denied rumors he is going anywhere and today the New York Post is reporting that Hearst president Cathie Black will also stay put after having renewed her contract for another three years.

Hearst, which publishes Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, and O, the Oprah Magazine among others has (along with the rest of the industry) been struggling of late and there had been some rumors that Black would be out once her contract was up. Not so!

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We’re going to focus on the positive. The Audit Bureau of Circulation released their numbers yesterday for the first half of 2008 and In Style and People are doing fine (though the Brangelina cover may not be as big as they’d hoped numberswise, if numbers were actually what they were aiming for), both posted gains in their newsstand sales.

Everyone else has pretty much had a crappy year so far to put it bluntly, with overall magazine sales dropping 6.3% in the first half of 2008. This includes O, The Oprah Magazine, US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, and the newly shrunk Rolling Stone. Portfolio points out that while newsstand sales are down, subscription sales have remained even (unless you count Game Informer, which is through the roof!) while industry-wide, “verified” subscriptions (meaning “public-place copies, or those given away by a third-party partner”) are up 15.8%. The Times says it’s just a result of a bad economy, and that people are merely shopping “very cautiously and less frequently.” Which seems like a solid rationale when it comes to the auto industry but not so much when we’re talking four dollar, reality diverting purchases. Though speaking of the auto-industry, they are apparently at least somewhat to blame for all these diminished ad pages…everything comes back to oil in the end, doesn’t it.

Hearst Magazines has just announced that Susan K. Reed has been appointed editor-in-chief of the U.S. edition of O, The Oprah Magazine, effective July 29. Reed comes to O from Golf For Women where she has been editor-in-chief since February 2002 and will replace current head Amy Gross, who is retiring.

During Reed’s tenure Golf For Women was nominated for its first National Magazine Award in Public Service from the American Society of Magazine Editors in 2003 for a piece it did on the exclusion of women at Augusta National Golf Club. Says Oprah: “Susan understands the O, The Oprah Magazine kind of optimism and will continue to communicate it to our readers with informative and inspirational stories each month.”