We’re trying a new format for our semi-regular job board posts…how do you guys like this?

Journalism jobs:
news line producer (Woodbury, NY)
news and sports reporter (Clayton, GA)
journalist/writer (Anywhere)
Marketing/PR jobs:
copywriter (New York, NY)
assistant account executive (Washington, DC)
marketing coordinator (Baltimore, MD)
media relations manager (Atlanta, GA)
social media manager (New York, NY)
Graphic design/visual jobs:
art department assistant (New York, NY)
graphic designer (Allen, TX)
Other jobs:
associate social media director (New York, NY)

Every day we scour major job boards, including, but not limited to Mediabistro.com’s listings, to find the best media jobs out there. We screen out duplicates and scams so you know you’re only receiving the top choices.

As of the time of this posting, there were 1510 jobs on our board.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.

The good news this morning (economy added almost a quarter-million jobs last month!) doesn’t, it seems, extend to the media market.

As we mentioned, the industries that added the most jobs were hospitality, health care, retail, and office temps.

Doesn’t give too much data about how PR people, marketers, ad pros and journalists are faring, though obviously anecdotal evidence suggests that we don’t have the most opportunities out there.

We’re trying to get slightly more scientific. As regular readers know, about three times a week, we look at the number of jobs posted on four media job boards. Here’s what the month of January’s looked like on mediabistro’s OWN job board, in terms of how many jobs are posted on any given day.

As you can see, 2010 was a pretty bad year (as expected—it was the height of the recession), but while the rest of the economy has continued to heal through 2011 and into 2012, with the unemployment rate falling just as much as it did from 2010 to 2011, the media industry, at least judging by this metric, is stagnant.

Hopefully we’ll see more jobs for media pros soon. But it does seem like we’re not catching up like everyone else.

Gamification has been the buzzword in industries from education to health and wellness to even recruitment, and there are some who suggest that gamification has already jumped the shark, but until today we hadn’t thought of it as a PR tool.

Yet according to PR Daily, at least two companies (NASA and a drug maker) are using games to promote their brands. (Pharmville, anyone?)

NASA’s launched Space Race Blastoff on Facebook, a quiz game that is meant to make people realize that the millions of dollars NASA spends on space has tangible benefits on earth (see Velcro, Tang, and memory foam mattresses).

And drug company Boehringer Ingelheim is launching a game in April that shows how much R&D goes into making a drug, in hopes that consumers will then understand why their Lipitor (for example) is so expensive.

“If you have to face the same challenge an organization does, or you can produce the same benefits, your eyes can be opened to something a company or industry has been trying to tell you for years,” writes Shel Holtz. “The game can create the ‘aha’ moment that institutional advertising, press releases, and blog posts that both traditional and digital media failed to deliver.”

Just another tool in your marketing and PR toolbox. Have you tried “gamifying” your company’s products? We’d love to see more examples of this trend, so send ‘em in.

A motion by Noah Kravitz to dismiss the case against him by Phonedog was denied this week, reports ReadWriteWeb.

As a reminder, Kravitz, a former employee of PhoneDog, changed his Twitter handle when he quit the company but kept the 17,000 followers he’d amassed.

According to Kravitz, this agreement was fine with PhoneDog for eight months, and then he sued them for back pay. In his mind, this is simply a retaliation lawsuit.

However, other social media analysts are saying that taking your Twitter followers with you when you leave a company is the modern equivalent of grabbing your Rolodex on the way out.

Without the agreement in writing, Kravitz may have a rough time ahead of him. But Kravitz’s lawyer said of the denied motion to dismiss: “”The Court’s decision … means that PhoneDog has met the minimum requirements to survive a motion seeking to throw PhoneDog’s claims out of court, but it was not a decision as to whether or not PhoneDog is entitled to the relief it seeks. Ultimately PhoneDog will be unable to prove its allegations against Mr. Kravitz, and Mr. Kravitz will prevail.”

A hearing is set for later this year.

The unemployment rate fell more than predicted and the economy added more jobs than expected in January, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today.

Employment increased by 243,000, with gains mostly in hospitality, health care, retail and office temps, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent.

While this seems like good news on the face of it, there’s still a long journey to recovery ahead. There were still 5.5 million long-term unemployed (and the longer you are unemployed the harder it is to get re-employed), 8.2 million underemployed, and 2.8 million who were not working but were not counted as unemployed because they hadn’t looked for a job in the past four weeks.

Still, the numbers of long-term unemployed and discouraged workers hadn’t significantly increased over the past year, and remain much the same.

The economy has added about 2 million jobs over the past year.

Sister blog FBDC asks why Washingtonian has gone through three web editors in two years…staff cuts in Jakarta and Bangkok…”one of SI’s best writers” is leaving to create a sports journalism app….and more stories you need this morning.

• Washingtonian Bleeds Web Editors (via FishbowlDC)

• Staff Reduction at CNN’s Asia Bureaus (via TVNewser)

• Selena Roberts Leaves Sports Illustrated (via FishbowlNY)

• New York Times Co To Expand Health Coverage Online (via paidContent)

• Time Names New Europe Editor (via FishbowlNY)

• Biz journalist hired to run editorial side of HomeDepot.com (via Talking Biz News)

And yes, we realize the irony of posting this, but come on. They’re basically daring us to.

According to today’s issue of satirical newspaper The Onion, a 25-year-old employee “died Wednesday after being sucked into the website’s powerful news-repurposing turbine, where his body was immediately torn to pieces.

“The 200-ton content-compiling device, developed by Greek multimillionaire and site co-founder Ari­anna Huffington, sucks up original articles from around the web with its massive rotor assembly, re-brands them with the Huffington Post name, and then spits them back out on the company’s home page.”

I heard this grinding noise, and then I saw all these Washington Post stories, sexy pictures of people in the workplace, and celebr­ity anti-vaccine editorials start to back up on the factory floor,” said Huffington Post editor Emily Paxton…”We couldn’t shut it down,” continued Paxton, adding that the smell of mutilated remains mixed with raw Internet media was gag-inducing. “If we had, it would have taken a full day for the technicians to reset it, and we couldn’t risk missing a breaking story on Brody Jenner.”

Since The Huffington Post was founded in 2005, its headquarters has consisted of two rooms: Arianna Huffington’s spacious, lav­ishly appointed office overlooking New York City, and the windowless 10,000-square-foot subterranean warehouse that houses the turbine. More than 700 low-wage workers, known as writers, clock in every day, and, dressed in their Huffington Post hard hats and coveralls, work in dark, unsafe conditions to ensure the machine runs smoothly and constantly churns out content.

…”In a way, though, maybe it’s a good thing he was ripped to shreds and killed,” added Thomas, later saying that because The Huffington Post didn’t provide Evers with health insurance, he wouldn’t have been able to afford his hospital bills, anyway. “Working the HuffPo turbine is no way to live.”

Plenty more at the original source.

According to Romenesko and a tipster of his, the AP has let go 10 staffers, including three bureau chiefs, two assistant bureau chiefs, two in AP images, entertainment reporter Rosalie Fox, and a photo editor.

The AP is also killing its premium personal finance wire, but reassigning the five staffers who worked on it, a separate tipster said.

According to the Tennessee Ticket blog, one of the AP staffers affected was Bill Poovey, the only AP Chattanooga correspondent.

Today the AP also announced that it is reinstating its internship programs after a one-year hiatus. When the news service initially announced the yearlong break, some didn’t believe the internships would ever return, so chalk one up for small victories.

MediabistroTV debuts a new series today, “My First Big Break” where we talk to media heavyweights about that break that got them to where they are today. Our first episode features Brian Williams, the anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News.” You know what he’s doing now, and you may know a bit about his past. But did you know he went bankrupt? That he lost his car? Or that he became a chyron operator after failing in small market TV? Williams tells us who gave him his First Big Break, and how it changed the course of his career.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

And the Times company brought in an operating profit of $106.7 million, compared to $116 million a year ago.

The 406,000 figure includes the paywall at the New York Times but also subscribers to BostonGlobe.com as well as the International Herald Tribune. The Globe by itself, the Times company reported, is drawing about 16,000 digital subscribers.

It’s still unclear how many of those subscribers have paid an introductory rate, which at both BostonGlobe.com and NYTimes.com is 99 cents for the first four weeks. Personal experience shows that the Times digital circulation department is willing to extend those 99-cent promotional offers at least once.

Even still, if that means the paywall is bringing in $400,000 a month, that isn’t bad.

On to the rest of the earnings report:

The Times’ ad revenues were down 7 percent overall, though up 5 percent in digital. Ignoring the About Group, where revenues fell 25 percent, ad revenues were down only 5 percent. Circulation was up, thanks to “an increase in new orders and improved retention following the launch of its digital subscriptions.”

Digital now makes up 14.8 percent of the Times’ overall revenue.