JOSSIP IN-DEPTH — We pay a lot of lip service here to the idea that magazines and newspapers are a dying breed these days. But how can you not? It's no longer just a conceptual exercise, like "Oh, when the Internet really takes off and everyone buys a Kindle there will be no more need for paper journalism."

Since the stock markets have tanked, and as the automotive industry began stalling thanks to rising fuel prices and less discretionary income, meaning fewer big ad deals from GM and Chrysler, which means fewer ads in mags, yada yada yada, it's become increasingly apparent the push toward the future of magazines and papers wasn't going to be a technological development, but a financial one.

And no, it's not been great so far. Ad sales are down, overall readership is down, layoffs are up, and in some cases, publications are straight up folding. So goodbye, New York Sun, Radar, CosmoGIRL!, and 02138! Meanwhile, online news aggregators are popping up (Daily Beast!) and flourishing (Huffington Post!).

Nowadays, you'll have better luck starting a blog about the magazine industry's implosion than you would have trying to start up a title in today's climate.

So what are the glossies that are currently in danger? Here's our own suicide watch, and what drove these mags to the brink of extinction (besides the obvious lack of tasty ad dollars):

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Remember when Women's Health took the arbitrarily-decided 2nd place in Ad Age's Top Ten list last month? As it turns out, just because you run one of the only successful magazines in a spiraling industry doesn't mean that you know what you're doing.

Case in point: David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of both Men and Women's Health fired founding editor Tina Johnson when he took over the reins mid-year, but her name was still listed during the Ad Age awards ceremony. Whoops. Hopefully it won't effect the magazine's someone miraculous ad count.

Now on to brighter things: Fitness editor Denise Brodey may be in line for the open spot at Health.

It took less than two months after taking the reigns of Women's Health for Dave Zinczenko, the Men's Health editor and new editorial director of Rodale's group, to get rid of the lady mag's founding editor Tina Johnson. She helped launch the spin-off and steer it toward its current standing, as a well-read and well-regarded book in its category, and Zinczenko's ousting her this week will surely disturb a few of Johnson's followers. No matter, it's likely going to follow with some other staff shake ups.

Officially, Johnson left the magazine voluntarily. But either way, her departure isn't the only revolution at the mag:

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While cleaning out our bookmarks, we noticed Dave Zinczenko has not updated his Yahoo! sex/relationship blog since March 18, leaving it without a fresh post for nearly three months exactly. [Yahoo]

… of Women's Health at least. The Rodale SVP and Men's Health chief has been named editorial director of the lady mag. Which totes means we're going to see him start working out with fit girls now, yes?

Who's that fella working on his pecs and delts?

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ZINCZENKO LOSING HIS LIBIDO? Tomorrow will be the 50th day since Men's Health washboard Dave Zinczenko posted to his Yahoo blog about relationships and sex. And his last post was only rated "helpful" by 30 percent of its readers. [Yahoo]

Relays the Times about an exciting new print ad gimmick: "Rolling Stone and Men’s Health are both testing programs in which readers can take cameraphone pictures of icons on ads, then send them to a certain number. In exchange, they’ll receive more information or an offer from the advertiser.

"In Rolling Stone’s current issue, five advertisers are running these offers. They include a motorcycle ring tone for Allstate’s motorcycle-insurance program and a video preview of The Discovery Channel’s new season of Man vs. Wild. Men’s Health is going even further, saying each full-page advertisement in its July-August issue will have the added feature."

Wait a second. Haven't we seen something like this before?

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GUESS THE SOURCE Watch as Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko plugs himself as the gentleman who volunteered to give up his table at Michael's so Renée Zellweger would have a place to sit. [P6]

Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko will be honored with Adweek's "Editor of the Year" superlative, which even special reports editor Tony Case admits is basically an award for talking about his sex life and waking up early enough to appear on the Today show.

ERIN BURNED Someone's out for Erin Burnett. (Let's hope for scandal by alleging it's Maria Bartiromo!) Page Six goes back attacking the CNBC anchor over her Men's Health "Eight Things That Would Impress Me" article, which supposedly pissed off the higher ups. Because it's hurting the CNBC "brand." It just so happens, it's probably helping the CNBC "ratings." [P6]

American body image issues: is there no greater cash cow?

Well, Men’s Health latest attempt to profit on the cherubic adolescent of its readers, Eat This, Not That might be less plausible than a body designed by Jake. The diet created to give you SIX PACK ABS! [Ed: years of watching infomercials means we have to refer abdominals this way] might not give you the SIX PACK ABS! you crave and deserve. When you think about it, if you could get SIX PACK ABS! just by eating yogurt, don’t you think pledges at Zeta Chi would know?

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Throw pillows have always appealed to us more than children, and turns out magazine publishing agrees with us.

Men’s Health is doing a soft launch for a Living spin-off. 400,000 copies of the first issue will hit newsstands next week. How often or when Men’s Health Living will next appear is unclear. For now the issue is a “test.”

As Men’s Health considers growing, Travel & Leisure is folding its family edition. Ed Kelly, CEO of American Express Publishing said, “We believe that better integration between the print and online platforms will be a more effective and efficient way to provide timely content about the family travel experience to our readers.”

It must be nice to have a larger brand to fold into, so you “integrate” instead of admitting to commercial failure.

Media buyers (namely, MediaVest) want magazine publishers to start issuing per-issue rate base guarantees, rather than bundling the circ for multiple issues for an average.

Not surprisingly, publishers aren't interested, especially when they'd be penalized for missing their numbers but not rewarded for exceeding 'em. Men's Health might be the only title fully on board, but only because it's in the fortunate position of using chiseled biceps and unruly abs as a distraction. [AdAge]

There's nothing sexy about Rodale, the Emmaus, Pa.-based publisher that keeps Dave Zinczenko button-down shirt supply in good order. That South Beach Diet franchise didn't help. But they're trying, we'll give them that. So much so that they're hoping JP Morgan will find the debt-free publisher a "strategic partner" to help them expand. Only criteria? Lots of cash, which is why U2 singer Bono's Elevation Partners is said to be an option. Bono already bought a huge chunk of Forbes; why not make a old-people-niche move and pick up Prevention?

• The down side of appearing on the cover of Men's Vogue? It kinda makes people think you're an effeminate ass.

• Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards is not sorry about politely asking Ann Coulter to shut the fuck up.

• The BBC is terribly sorry that it cut away from Tony Blair's final speech as prime minister to show promos for the television show, Rome.

• Will a jury of Conrad Black's peers sentence the press baron to 20 years in prison? And if so, will 108 year old Larry King still have what it takes to grab the post-prison interview exclusive?

• Julia Allison is more than just another pretty face. She's also a mediocre writer and, as it turns out, a thinker!

• The Associated Press claims to have some sort of prudish objection to an amateur video showing strippers "performing lap dances" at a golf course, but we think they're just Bogie Monsters.

• Elisabeth Hasselbeck begrudgingly admits that things aren't exactly "Rosie" with her former co-host.

• CNN precludes us from making fun of their model-hot (and dumb as a brick!) anchor people by doing something nice for everyone.

• Carl Bernstein's biography of Hillary Clinton is really about…Carl Bernstein.

• Overprotective parents (who have already censored their children from harmful television, internet and video game content) search for new and more inventive ways to ruin their kids' lives.

• Finally! Men's Health shows us how to resist our strongest temptations, like that "tremendous" food on Air Force One.

• Meanwhile, Details EIC Dan Peres to make like Dave Zinczenko. Or, in other words, "to become annoyingly ubiquitous and offer free blow jobs to anyone who will help promote his book."

Sometime Men's Health editor and full-time Today show guest Dave Zinczenko is also a part-time blogger for Yahoo. Every now and again, we like to check in with the Z and see how's he faring in the big bad world of the Internet. And in a double dose of awesome, he's serving up a pair of posts about which secrets you should never tell your loved one. And which secrets you should.

In case you can't wait for the click, no, none of them have to do with coming out. We said it was Zinc's Yahoo blog, not Dan Peres'.

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MediaPost's page-flipping column Magazine Rack took an in-depth look at Rodale's Men's Health and Time Inc.'s Health, comparing everything from their rapid weight loss plans (Health gets the edge!) to between the sheets pointers (this one goes to the Z-man, natch).

Here's a brief run-down of all the categories and final rankings:

In addition to the aforemention accolades, Men's Health also reigned superior in the realms of features and writing quality and quality of relationship advice. Meanwhile, Health gets props in the pop science, most useful info, though the two mags tied in terms of overall aesthetics.

And while we don't disagree with the final verdict (MediaPost gives the edge to Men's Health for being "more literate and memorable") we acknowledge that one or two other factors may have contributed to our decision.

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• Dave Zinczenko and Kate White swap spit in Men's Health and Cosmopolitan, leading to all sorts of fun body image issues.

• NYT's new newsroom violates Jeff Jarvis' prophecy. (The company's tech support and payroll will still be handled in Norfolk.)

• Why won't anyone pay attention to the nasty legal wrangling going on at Dealbreaker.com?

• Atoosa Rubenstein: Still a media darling.

• Lorne Michaels is the last to know what NBC is doing with his SNL.

• Who cares about ratings with those blue eyes of his? Not CNN, who's said to be re-upping him for $50m over 5 years.

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