Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• The Condé Nast job cuts have made their way to Anna's domain on the 12th floor of 4 Times Square: Vogue laid off six staffers today. [AllThingsD]
• More bad news for Condé: some advertisers are reportedly "jumping ship" after the recent shake-up at Brides. On the plus side, The New Yorker appears to be hiring, so you can take that as good news if you'd like. [NYP, NYO]
• Remember how the New York Times Co. was planning to sell the Boston Globe? Yea, well, NYT publisher Artie Sulz has changed his mind. [AP, BG]
• Mike Bloomberg totally approves of Bloomberg LP's decision to buy BusinessWeek. Translation: The mayor backs the decisions he, himself, makes even if he contends that he wasn't actually responsible for making them. [NYT]
• Is Bloomberg LP's acquisition of BusinessWeek part of a big, new plan to compete with the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones? Sure seems like it. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, WSJ staffers gathered today to toast the news that the Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling paper in the U.S. [Politico, E&P]
• CBS News is now "investigating" the David Letterman saga (and his employer CBS!) as part of a future story. That must be a bit awkward, huh? [NYO] More

• There may be other suitors for NBC in addition to Comcast. Like News Corp. And Liberty Media. And Time Warner. Or maybe not. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, for one, says he isn't interested. [THR, DHD, Gawker, AdAge]
• More on the sale of BusinessWeek: "Knowledgeable sources" say Bloomberg is paying $2-$5 million in cash for the mag. And another source reports the mag will be changing its name to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Naturally. [BW, NYT]
• The war between the White House and Fox News goes on. [NYDN, ABC, CJR]
• If you notice TV commercials seem more upbeat than usual, it's because the advertising world has decided to be cheerful and optimistic again. [NYT]
• The Atlantic has determined that NBC CEO Jeff Zucker and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. are "Brave Thinkers," for some reason. [NYO]More

A Sulzberger Defends His Own | An relatively unnoticed supporting player at the trial of Anthony Marshall was A.G. Sulzberger, the great-grandson of Metropolitan Museum trustee and New York Times chairman Arthur Hays Sulzberger, grandson of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, the longtime chairman of both the Times and the museum, and son of Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger, Jr., who now runs the paper. More

Happy Birthday | New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. turns 58 today. NBA commissioner David Stern is turning 67. Art world fixture and chief curator of the Studio Museum Thelma Golden is 44. Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto is turning 51. Bonnie Hunt turns 45. Joan Jett is 51. Singer/writer Nick Cave is 52. Opera singer Andrea Bocelli is turning 51. Hall of fame baseball manager Tommy Lasorda is 82. Retired Rangers star Mike Richter turns 43. And Scott Baio is 48 today.

Back in March, the New York Times Co. put its 1997 Dassault Falcon jet up for sale for $9.5 million. Several months passed without a buyer stepping forward, and now we hear the plane has been pulled off the market entirely. Did the company finally find someone to take it off its hands? Did Arthur Sulzberger Jr. decide to hang on to it? (Probably not.) Maybe the paper is planning to give it a good scrub-down before putting it up for sale again in the fall? We have no clue. But if you do, let us know! [Previously]

The Friday Party Report | The Four Seasons celebrated its 50th anniversary last night and a predictably large crowd of media personalities, politicos, and powerbrokers turned out for the occasion. Just a few of the people on hand to celebrate the event with co-owners Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder (left,  Erin Fetherston): Barry Diller, Nicole Miller, Ralph Lauren, Mort Zuckerman, Ray and Veronica Kelly, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., David and Joyce Dinkins, Henry Kissinger, Aby and Samantha Rosen, Dolly Lenz, Tim and Nina Zagat, Steve Schwarzman, Fern Mallis, Jay McInerney, Jeffrey and Linda Chodorow, Steve Newhouse and Gina Sanders, Albert Maysles, Ruth Reichl, Robert Burke, Linda Fargo, Star Jones and Herb Wilson, Thom Browne, Don Marron, Drew Nieporent, John Gutfreund, Chuck Scarborough, Cindi Leive and Howard Bernstein, Terry Allen Kramer, Marjorie Gubelmann, Marina Rust Connor, and Salman Rushdie and girlfriend Pia Glenn. [PMc, Wireimage, NYO, Paper]

• Star Trek reeled in $76 million at the box office this weekend. [WSJ]
• Metro is selling off its collection of free (and money-losing) newspapers to Seabay Media, a company controlled by Metro's former CEO. [WaPo]
• Playboy says it's planning to make "radical changes" to the mag, and may raise prices as well as reduce the number of issues it prints every year. [Folio]
• Jon Stewart is creating a two-hour special for the History Channel. [B&C]
• Lit agent Larry Kirshbaum is shopping a memoir by Rafael Nadal. [Crain's]
• More speculation the Sulzbergers will be forced to give up the Times. [NYP]
• Speaking of the Times, a San Francisco organization paid columnist Tom Friedman $75,000 for a speech he's given before (and which is online). [SFC]
• Brit chef Jamie Oliver and Ryan Seacrest are working on a new reality show for ABC that will "give healthy makeovers to an entire city." Be afraid. [THR] More

• Arthur Sulzberger Jr. says he has no plans to take the New York Times Co. private, despite "brutal conditions" that threaten his paper's survival. [NYT]
• Meanwhile, Moody's has downgraded the NYT Co.'s credit rating. [E&P]
• A few theories on why Peter Kaplan departed Jared Kushner's Observer, and what's in store for Kaplan—and the paper—in the future. [WWD]
• Former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta is the new CEO of MySpace. [WSJ]
• Is GE looking to sell NBC Universal to Time Warner? It's possible! [TDB]
• Ambushing the ambusher: Staking out the home of Jesse Watters, the Fox News producer who stalks liberals for Bill O'Reilly. [Gawker] More

It was Drew Barrymore's big night at the Ziegfeld yesterday when the new HBO movie, Grey Gardens, had its premiere. On hand for the occasion and afterparty at the Pierre: Drew's co-stars Jessica Lange and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as well as guests like Justin Long (left), Jimmy Fallon,  Rudy and Judi Giuliani, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, Gay Talese, Arthur Sulzberger, Dan Abrams, Roger Friedman, Hilary Rhoda, Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, Peter Som, Jason Wu, Erin Fetherston, Kristin Wiig, Tony Sirico, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Aerin Lauder, Albert Maysles, Ashleigh Banfield and Howard Gould, Monet Mazur, Debbie Harry, Selita Eubanks, the Beastie Boys' Mike D, Ad-Roc, and MCA, Aleksandra Baryshnikov, BD Wong, and the film's director, Michael Sucsy. [PMc, Wireimage, Getty, LAT, FWD]More

• To celebrate 1,000 episodes (and 35,892 sound effects), CNBC's resident buffoon, Jim Cramer, rang the opening bell of the NYSE today. [CNBC]
• Sales of romance novels are on the rise, since in times like these, we all just want to indulge in happy endings. Or something along those lines. [NYT]
• Why is the New York Times Co. frantically looking to cut costs at the Boston Globe? For one thing, it's on track to lose $85 million in 2009. [NYO, Portfolio]
• It's hard getting people to pay for newspaper content they now get for free. Let Coke guide you, Arthur Sulzberger Jr.: "Coca-Cola took tap water, filtered it and called it Dasani, and makes millions of dollars a year." [NYT]
• Magazines are blurring the line between editorial and advertising by putting ads on the cover. If they don't, they go bust. Rock, meet hard place. [NYT]More

• All those layoffs at Forbes yesterday? They continue today, sadly. [NYP]
• Times executive editor Bill Keller has a few words for Marc Bowden, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece about Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Also? He thinks VF should really beef up its factchecking department. [Romenesko]
• The biggest media company in America? That would be Disney. [BN]
• Nine of the top 10 cable news programs belong to Fox News. [HP]
• The winners of the 2008 Peabody Awards were announced today. [AP]
• Wanda Sykes is getting her own talk show. [B&C]
• Video from Bill O'Reilly's chat with David Letterman last night. [MM]
• Guiding Light is done. The final episode airs Sept. 18. [THR]

• Mark Bowden's 11,000-word profile of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. for the May issue of Vanity Fair is now online. And it ain't pretty. [VF]
• In other Times news, the paper is scrapping its "City" section and has shut down the International Herald Tribune website. [NYO, E&P]
• For the first time, CNN will finish March behind MSNBC and Fox News. [AP]
• He's only been on the air two months, but Glenn Beck's "conservative populist anger" has already put him right behind Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. [NYT]
• Adweek, MediaWeek and Brandweek may be folded together. [NYP]
• News Corp. is hiring ex-AOL CEO Jon Miller to lead its digital division. [WSJ]
• The Huffington Post is launching an investigative journalism site. [AP]
• MTV is bringing back music videos! Sort of. [NYT]

• It's been a dark day at the New York Times: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Janet Robinson announced a five percent salary reduction for all editors and said 100 employees on the business side would be laid off. [Gawker, NYO, NYT]
• Blender has been shuttered; April will be the mag's last issue. [AdAge]
• The Washington Post is offering buyouts again. And if enough people don't take 'em, the paper says a round of layoffs will follow. [Politico]
• Richard Beckman is out as Condé Nast's marketing chief; he'll be heading up the company's Fairchild Fashion Group instead. [WSJ, Crains]
• It's getting a little stormy over at the Weather Channel! [NYP]
• Rod Blagojevich may have some sort of reality show in the works. [CST]
• ABC News has settled a lawsuit filed against Diane Sawyer. [NYP]
• Barry Diller is the proud new owner of SportsPickle.com. [PaidContent]
• The most newspaper-friendly city in America? Rochester! [E&P]

Editor & Publisher's Mark Fitzgerald and Jennifer Saba report that the New York Times Co. is selling its private jet, news that the company apparently included in its annual proxy, which was filed with the SEC this morning. But it looks like they've been trying to unload the 1997 Dassault Falcon for close to two months now: It appears the plane was first officially listed back in mid-January. Isn't there someone out there who can come to Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s rescue? It's just $9.5 million! And it's loaded with extras! You'll find the full specs below. [F&J via Politico] More

• Got an idea for how Arthur Sulzberger Jr. might be able to rescue the struggling New York Times? He now says he'll "consider anything." [NYO] 
• Hachette plans to leave Midtown for cheaper space near Wall Street. [NYP]
• Josh Schwartz is finishing the pilot for an as-yet-untitled Gossip Girl spin-off that will be tied into GG's season finale on May 11.  [NYO]
• Depressing: The story of the 55-year-old former TV Guide editor who is now an unpaid intern—yes, unpaid intern—at wowOwow.com. [LAT]
• Why did Jon Stewart go off on Rick Santelli? An unnamed "on-air host" claims Stewart is "bizarrely obsessed with" with the CNBC reporter. [Dealbreaker]
• Speaking of Stewart, Slate's The Big Money would like you remind you that Jon Stewart is not actually a journalist. Yea, thanks for that. [TBM]