1. Former Newsweek President Explains Magazine’s “Disaster” First Quarter Ad Sales, April 18
2. Journalism Tops List of Most Useless College Degrees, April 28
3. Details Emerge on Bill Simmons’ Website, April 28
4. Rachel Maddow Hints That Anderson Cooper Should Come Out, April 25
5. Wonkette Pulls Post Mocking Trig Palin After Advertisers Boycott Site, April 22
6. Friendster to Erase All User Photos and Blogs by May 31, April 26
7. Anchor Ron Corning Joins WFAA in Dallas After Stint at News 12 Long Island, April 25

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Stuef wrote: “What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded.” Trig Palin has Down syndrome.

We don’t quite know where to begin with that one. Wonkette is known to be a colorful, biting blog, but we can’t imagine what the author, editor, or anyone part of the Wonkette crew who saw it go up on the site was thinking. Picking on a child with special needs, no matter what your intentions, is one sure-fire way to become universally reviled.

And retribution was swift. The post went wide among conservative blogs, and in about 36 hours, a campaign led by Big Journalism editor-in-chief Dana Loesch and Big Government writer Derek Hunter resulted in nine advertisers dropping Wonkette, including Papa Johns, Huggies, the Vanguard Group, Holland America Cruises, Nordstrom, Bob Evans Farms, Reliant Energy, DealSwarm, and Coldwell Banker. Whoa!

Wonkette editor Ken Layne told David Weigel at Slate that he had placed Stuef on probation, and Stuef himself put up the following apology:

UPDATE: I regret this post and using the word “retarded” in a reference to Sarah Palin’s child. It’s not nice, and is not necessary, but I take responsibility for writing it. For those who came and are offended by this post: I’m sorry, of course. But I stand by my criticism of Sarah Palin using her child as a political prop.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• The Atlantic: You know shit is about to get real when Bill O’Reilly starts chastising the CPAC for being too mean to Obama.

• PRNewser: Social media campaigns and viral endorsements are getting into some gray areas, ethics-wise. That’s why The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has created these helpful Guidelines For Social Media Disclosure.

• New York Observer: Former Gawker Managing Editor Gabriel Snyder can take some cold comfort in knowing them former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox does not miss the Nick Denton experience.

• Business Insider: Advertisers are going to pay media companies money up front again! Maybe! According to some guy from CBS!

• WebNewser: That Justin Bieber kid is blowing up the Internet. If only NBC had managed to get an exclusive endorsement deal with him, and then only show delayed, “best of” footage.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Congrats to Ana Marie Cox, who has had no trouble finding a new job after her gig as correspondent at Air America expired when the media company shuttered in late January. The frequent Rachel Maddow guest (and substitute host) will be putting her prolific knowledge of the D.C. scene to good use as the new Washington correspondent for G.Q., helping shape the magazine’s D.C. Power List to be “less like a best-dressed list, and more like a Billboard 100,” as she told Politico‘s Michael Calderone this morning. This will be Cox’s first time working at a monthly magazine, though before the Condé Nast title she was Time.Com‘s Washington editor. Cox is perhaps most famous for founding the D.C. political snark blog, Wonkette.

Read More: Ana Marie Cox joins GQ

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today’s launch of Gawker.TV is the product of Richard Blakeley‘s three years as Nick Denton‘s video editor. Now the This Is Why You’re Fat co-author is manning his own satellite site, which will be posting videos throughout the day, with the help of the 16 or so interns currently working under Blakeley.

The fact that so much (unpaid) manpower is going into this spin-off site isn’t exactly a surprise. Gawker‘s largest-generating posts have almost always been candid videos: Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology, the Eric Dane/Rebecca Gayheart/Kari Ann Peniche sex tape, and the video shot by Blakeley of Heath Ledger’s body being wheeled out of the apartment he was staying in Soho when he died in 2008.

Denton has also admitted that it will be easier to sell ads on a site that is not as specifically themed as some of his other off-shoots like Jezebel (for women) or Fleshbot (Gawker’s sex Web site). Sales of Gawker’s other sites — Wonkette, Idolator, and Gridskipper — were similarly explained to be the result of poor ad revenue.

Gawker.TV currently has a tip box at the top of the site for users to submit videos. We have yet to hear back from Gawker Media if the tip box will automatically filter into the new open forums, as they do on Gawker’s main site.

See More: Gawker.TV

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Cox tell us she will be doing “political stories from both outside and inside the Beltway.” She makes her debut next Monday just in time to cover the Inauguration. Full release after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gawker Media is capping off 2008 by selling two of its blogs — Consumerist and the Hollywood gossip site Defamer. Yesterday, two weeks after FishbowlNY broke the story of talks between the two companies, The New York Times reported that Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, is buying the customer watchdog blog Consumerist from Gawker Media. In the article, the paper quotes Gawker publisher Nick Denton saying that he’s also “in talks” to sell the Hollywood gossip site Defamer. FishbowlNY has exclusively learned that, later in the afternoon, Denton sent out an email to his site leads revealing that Defamer has actually already been sold. Denton told his top editors that public announcement of the sale will come later today.

Denton put the Consumerist up for sale in mid-November at the same time that he folded his tech-industry gossip blog Valleywag into Gawker.com. Defamer was never put on sale, but in his email, Denton says the company was approached about the site a few months ago and has been in talks with the buyer ever since. Denton’s missive did not reveal who will be purchasing Defamer, but that news should come out when the sale is officially announced later today.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gawker had their own black Friday newsdump today. In a move that may soon become known as the Denton doctrine, Gawker head Nick Denton announced that he was preemptively laying off 19 members of the editorial staff, including recently hired Moe Tkacik, and suspending page view bonuses for the first quarter of next year due to the upcoming fiscal crisis. Earlier this year Denton cut loose three of Gawker’s sites including Wonkette with similar explanations. We spoke to Denton earlier and he confirmed that this was indeed a preemptive move since none of the sites had yet to see any cancellations.

Denton declined to give us a rundown of who was being laid off, though Valleywag confirmed they had already cut three; judging from the memo that was posted to the site, it looks like Valleywag, Consumerist, and Fleshbot will be the hardest hit. The memo also confirmed earlier reports that Denton will be replacing himself with former NYO-er Gabriel Snyder. Why Snyder?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.