The call is coming from inside the house

At some point in the coming weeks, TRL murderer MTV will let go a huge portion of its staff as parent Viacom goes the cost-cutting route. Now there are rumors floating at Gawker that VH1 might get in on the firing action.

And this just in to Jossip: Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and CMT will also see sizable firings as well. We're told a "360 degree" layoff strategy is in the works, with "around Christmas" cited as a timeline. [Photo: Webshots]

We're hearing five staffers were just fired today from Life & Style, the Bauer tabloid that isn't In Touch. Two designers and three from the fashion department were let go, as ordered by owner Hubert Boehle. It's just the normal course of publishing, says an insider, and not reason to assume the sky is falling (i.e. that L&S is shutting down, as some have assumed). Interestingly, since Dan Wakeford took over as editor a few weeks ago, newsstand sales have improved from Donna Armstrong's 350,000 average to 550,000.

Celebrity gossip is not immune to the economy's collapse. While some insiders speculate Bauer might merge its two tabloids, Time Inc.'s People — the literal cash machine at Time Warner's publishing empire — is hoping to weather the storm by slashing its editorial staff by 18. For now, according to an internal memo, they're looking for voluntary buyouts in the form of of six reporter-researchers, four West Coast and four East Coast correspondents/editors, three copy editors, and one research librarian. But what happens if editor Larry Hackett can't deliver to group chief Martha Nelson the 18 volunteers?

In fact, according to one knowledgeable People insider, it's likely he won't be able to, since the Dec. 1 deadline is quickly approaching and staffers are being offered only two weeks severance pay for every year they've worked there. (Our tipster describes this as "pretty sucky" compared to other publishers' buyout offers.) So what happens after Dec. 1? Involuntary layoffs. According to union rules, People must dismiss staffers in order of reverse seniority, which means the last person hired is the first person fired. But from all accounts, that's not the way Time Inc. plans on going about this. You can imagine how filled to the brim with joy that's making everyone.

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It wasn't the $2 million-plus Bonnie Fuller, nor Janice Min's former No. 2 (and former British OK! chief) Nicola McCarthy who will be replacing Sarah Ivens (who says she gave notice back in June) atop OK!. Instead, new-ish general manager Kent Brownridge opted for Susan Toepfer of Hearst's recently shuttered Quick & Simple, a might-as-well-be eponym for the tabloid biz. More interesting, though, is Brownridge's unexpected shakeup on the publisher side: Out is Tom Morrissey, in is Lori Burgess. Nevermind that Morrisey brought ad pages up 34 percent through September in an industry where that type of thing is usually rewarded with use of the corporate jet. Burgess, meanwhile, left her SVP spot Niche Media in March, where she landed after publisher gigs at House & Garden and Elle.

So what does all of this say? Common wisdom might suggest Brownridge selected Toepfer and Burgess because he got them on the cheap — in an effort to reduce owner Richard Desmond's growing fears of having sunk too much cash into his American tabloid spinoff. But Brownridge can often be overheard spewing his arithmetic model: The tabloid business is full of fixed costs (printing, checkout aisle pockets, photos), and any publisher knows those costs before getting into the game, so it makes zero sense to skimp on the talent, who are responsible for trying to fashion OK! into a leader among the competition. That is: Cutting costs over staffers doesn't make much sense.

Oh, and all this nonsense about Brownridge trying to woo Bonnie Fuller with that consulting gig? Apparently not much truth to it.

If you're a large media company that's about to ax hoards of employees, what's the best way to deliver the news? Publicly announce the firings on a news dump Friday? Sure, but anybody can do that. Spin the layoffs as "right-sizing"? Fine, but PR speak is so transparent these days. What about blame the economy? Blaaaaand!

So, might we suggest two better alternatives that at least show you're a big media company bursting with creativity?

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Last week, Hearst shuttered CosmoGIRL!, one of the last remaining teen girl magazines left on the newsstands. ELLEgirl and Teen People closed in 2006, and with CG! gone, only Conde Nast's Teen Vogue and Hearst's Seventeen are left to fill the category. Which is why, when Hearst announced CG!'s end, they said they'd move as many staffers as they could to Seventeen. Except as we told you yesterday, approximately zero staffers were being offered new gigs at Ann Shoket's magazine.

That's because Hearst is offering all but the most paltry assistance to CG! refugees. Just how paltry?

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Layoffs at Niche Media, publisher of Gotham, Hamptons, and Ocean Drive. [Gawker]

It's "our fault in the media for stereotyping demographics" and assuming blacks, whites, and Hispanics will vote a certain way on November 4. —Obama supporter Luke Russert, son of the late Tim Russert and NBC News "youth correspondent," at this morning's MTV-hosted Election Effect Panel, where Viacom staffers could be overheard commiserating about the layoffs that are expected to be handed out imminently.

'A survey by online job site CareerBuilder.com of 3,169 hiring managers found 22 percent of them screened potential staff via social networking profiles, up from 11 percent in 2006. An additional nine percent said they don't currently use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace to screen potential employees but they do plan to start.'

Hoping to slash its editorial budget, the New York Daily News has been looking for 25 volunteers to take buyouts, which would trim the staff of 325 editorial staffers to 300. This led one brilliant Keith Kelly source to remark, "I think they want to get the paper down to 300 people." For real?

The deadline for accepting the offer is this Friday, except there's one little problema: Too many people might want out from under Martin Dunn.

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Jim Romenesko's column for the Poynter Institute's homepage is, for the most part, the only reason to visit the site. Built for journalists, Romenesko's link tidbits are the talking points that keep industry chatter flowing. But after a redesign of Poynter's site, Jim & Co. find themselves subjected to more backlash than usual. Is Romenesko just a dumping ground for he-said-she-said arguments and Sophie's Choice news about layoffs?

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So this classifies as bad news, right?

• Media conglomerate Cox Enterprises is selling the whole kit and kaboodle (except for three holdings)

• The McClatchy Company announced a year-long wage freeze. Then they started selling off their assets.

• Gannett Company Inc, (the largest newspaper publisher in the U.S.) plans on cutting 1,000 jobs to avoid going under.

If you want to see a movie that will make you ashamed to be an American, you should definitely check out Swing Vote. The new Kevin Costner feature asserts that the average American male takes 31 sick days a year, let's his 11 year old drive him home when he's too drunk, and doesn't know what the word "civic" means, let alone "responsibility." This movie could have been used for Al Qaeda training video.

But there was one reoccurring theme in the film: the blue-collar fear of job "insourcing," where the U.S. imports illegal Mexican immigrants to wash our dishes, pick our tomatoes, and torment Lou Dobbs. It's a play on another of America's fears: The outsourcing of American call-centers, and bloggers, to India.

But like the fly in your Chardonnay, the irony here is that "insourcing" is already happening — in India no less. There, English-speaking American journalists are flocking (by the dozens!) to escape the death of this nation's print journalism industry.

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Fourteen of the 17 staffers at Fortune Small Business (essentially a tool of American Express) are being let go. The remaining three will be shuffled to some obscure division of Time Inc., where they'll be asked to churn out advertiser-friendly copy. Read: Whatever AmEx wants. Update: Maybe those 14 staffers have hope after all? And maybe AmEx doesn't control what appears in the magazine? Scandal!

One hundred fifty of the Los Angeles Times Media Group's 250 total job cuts will happen at the namesake paper, with more than one-sixth of the staff being shown the door. And the newspaper will trim its pages by 15 percent, resulting in an even thinner newspaper. This is a much larger bloodletting than execs previously let on; a few months back they were only expected about 50 positions to be lost. Then Sam Zell's blood sugar dropped, and he got much more vicious. [NYT]

Know how it used to be a running joke that reality TV shows would, in the credits, scroll the names of the writers, even though a reality TV show is supposed to, you know, be based on reality? And not need writers?

Then here's a new one for you: Fox News is looking for a "fact writer."

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We're hearing Rob Shuter, the lying former Jessica Simpson publicist who just took over OK!'s executive editor post (since arriving as entertainment editor, then being named deputy ed), just named editorial manager Katie Caperton to the deputy editor slot, while nightspot staple Shauna Bass (of Life & Style) was installed as news editor. We're also told tabloid vet David Caplan, currently at People, was offered the exec ed slot by EIC Sarah Ivens about a month ago, but turned it down.

As major news outlets continue shelling out for a very expensive election season (Debates: $500k-$1m a pop; Convention coverage: ~$2m), some might be looking to cut corners. Networks like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News already have some version of a user-generated news product, where viewers are solicited to send in tips and photos, that's less about getting all Web 2.0 than it is about getting everyday citizens to act as unpaid reporters (or so the inner cynic in us believe). But that doesn't mean the media are cooling down — quite the opposite. With the feisty Democratic primary done with, it's time to explore every possible angle leading up to November. Like what the temperature is on college campuses. Which explains why CBSNews.com, WashingtonPost.com, and university press syndicate UWIRE.com are teaming to find "15 to 20 top reporters" to keep their readers plugged in to who's waving what campaign banner on the Quad. They need everybody from investigative journalists to photographers to satirists to play a part. Interested? Fantastic. Just tell them how you like to be paid: Cash, cheque, wire transfer, or … exposure.

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"I think, if anything, the books like Devil Wears Prada and Because She Can have made things worse for assistants, because now bosses are less willing to let you work on important things, at least in New York. They’re paranoid. They think, ‘What could my assistant rat out about me?'" That's Save The Assistants founder and "industry help" godmother Lilit Marcus in today's Observer, bouncing off the newspeg of Jennifer Hudson starring as Carrie's assistant in the Sex and the City movie. These underpaid ladder climbers are rewarded not with cash or prestige, but with their boss' Rolodex and the chance to network their way into a better job every night. And while it's no secret this corps of hired help is so often abused, many, such as the twentysomethings holding these jobs, continue to wonder, "Why?"

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It's not like Sam Zell ever promised to keep anyone around at the Los Angeles Times. He's got billions in debt he needs to keep stable, which means he's got a couple plans up his sleeve. Obvious first choice: job cuts. Except Zell calls this down-sizing "right-sizing," because, based on his calculations that the average LAT journo produces the equivalent of 51 pages a year, while competitors in Hartford and Baltimore spit out 300 pages, the current staff overload is just waste. And so all of this will bring into focus his other big task, which is evening out the editorial:advertising ratio to 1:1, which will also allow him to shrink the actual size of the paper and the number of pages printed per year. And finally, Zell has taken to addressing his thousands of employees as "partners," if only because the future of the Times, and its debt load, depend on their stock-option plan.