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NY Times Announces Layoffs (FBNY)
What's the best post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas gift in the world if you work for The New York Times? A layoff, that's what. A memo yesterday from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said "about a dozen support positions within the newspaper are being eliminated. We will, for example, be closing the Recording Room as well as trimming a number of clerical and secretarial jobs."

Study: More Than 60 Percent Don't Trust Campaign Coverage (E&P)
Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not trust press coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, according to a new Harvard University survey, which also revealed four out of five people believe coverage focuses too much on the trivial — and more than 60 percent believe coverage is politically biased. The findings were among those in Harvard's Center for Public Leadership National Leadership Index.

FCC Expected to Lift Barrier to Tribune Deal (LAT)
Federal regulators are poised to approve Tribune Co.'s $8.2-billion deal to go private by the end of the week, clearing the way for the transaction to close by Dec. 31. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin removed the remaining regulatory obstacle to the deal Wednesday, proposing to exempt Tribune for two years from rules prohibiting ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same market.

WSJ's New Glossy, Pursuits, to Go Global (AdAge)
The Wall Street Journal has decided to expand the scope of Pursuits, the glossy magazine it plans to introduce next September, by adding distribution in Europe and Asia. In addition to the 800,000 copies planned for Journal subscribers in the United States, Pursuits is expected to be inserted in about 80,000 copies each of the Europe and Asia editions, for a total circulation of 960,000.

Once a Mainstay of Magazines, Cigarette Makers Are Dropping Print Ads (NYT)
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company disclosed this week that it would run no ads in 2008 in consumer magazines and newspapers. Philip Morris has not bought print ads for its cigarettes in the last three years, so the decision suggests that next year consumers are likely to read cigarette ads from only the third-largest tobacco company, the Carolina Group, which makes Lorillard brands like Newport.

Who's in Si-beria?: Party Politics at Condé (NYP)
In the publishing world, Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr.'s annual bash at the Four Seasons Restaurant for his top editors, publishers, and executives officially kicks off the holiday season. Often seen as a bellwether of who's in or out among the Nasties, many in publishing pay particularly close attention to who's seated near Newhouse.

Time Inc.'s Lori Majewski Is Done With This Publishing Thing, For Now (Jossip)
The Lori Majewski white water rafting ride through the entertainment press continues! After jumping around from Teen People to People and then to Entertainment Weekly as executive editor, the wanderlust is bouncing again. Majewski is reportedly leaving in December to involve herself more deeply in teen-focused organization Do Something.

Publisher of Variety to Step Down (LAT)
Charlie Koones will step down in March as president and publisher of Variety, the entertainment trade paper said Wednesday in a surprise announcement. Koones, 45, called the split amicable and said he hoped to raise venture capital or other private-equity financing to pursue unspecified opportunities in the media business.

John Edwards Stares Down National Enquirer Over Affair Allegations (Rush and Molloy)
The tab's editors have been promising a followup to The Enquirer's Oct. 10 story romantically linking the married presidential candidate with a female campaign staffer. But seven weeks after the first story, one Enquirer insider admits, "There's a lot of smoke" but "no smoking gun." Enquirer editor David Perel still insists the original story was "100 percent accurate."

As Other News Orgs Close Foreign Bureaus, AP International Report Becomes Increasingly Vital (AJR)
For years, the AP has been flying in the face of a prevailing industry trend. While others are pulling out of foreign locales, the wire service has made worldwide expansion part of a master plan for future growth. To lead that effort, a new division, AP International, was established in 2003. This mandate to expand global coverage comes directly from the top.

HBO to Make Movie About Barry Bonds and Steroids (Variety)
HBO Films has acquired rights to Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports, a book by the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke numerous stories about the nutrition company accused of distributing illegal steroids to athletes including Bonds and Olympic gold medal sprinter Marion Jones.

Imus-Bashers Face Vengeance (Page Six)
The I-Man goes back on the air Monday, and those who piled on him for the "nappy-headed ho's" joke better duck and cover. "I think he will have some scores to settle," WABC Radio general manager Phil Boyce said. It is doubtful Imus will ever forgive CBS chief Les Moonves, who fired him, or regular guest Tim Russert, the host of NBC's Meet the Press, who was "an invisible man" while Imus was under attack. USAT: Imus' new show will be unlike his old, all-white boys club. An executive familiar with the closely guarded new format, who asked not to be identified, says that two African-Americans will be regulars. Forbes: Imus, as far as James Brady is concerned, "is the single most intelligent, sensitive, and occasionally orneriest broadcaster there has ever been, the opposite poles of his personality as disparate as his moods."

Was Discovery! Meant to Be Found? (WaPo)
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner, who died in 1993, has a new book out this fall — but it's one Stegner's son and his literary agent say should never have seen the light of day. Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil was published in September. It resurrects a narrative history Stegner was hired to write, in the mid-1950s, by the Arabian American Oil Co.

How to Poke WaPo's Don Graham and Not Get Fired for It (Washingtonian)
Harry Jaffe: Let's say you want to cozy up to Don Graham, one of the nation's most powerful media moguls. How do you socialize with the head of the Washington Post Company? You can hope for a chance meeting on the Metro. He would be the sixtyish gentleman with rosy cheeks, brown fedora, and funky overcoat. Better yet, you can "friend" him on Facebook.

'Best Of' Lists Endure Despite Web Focus (PR Week)
Hamilton Nolan: The season of lists is upon us. Birdwatching magazines do it. Beekeeping magazines do it. As the end of the year approaches, magazines of all stripes spew forth lists covering every possible lens through which one could view our world. Looks back. Looks forward. Predictions, analyses, bests and worsts, most notable people, places, things, events, products, gadgets, guns, and gewgaws.