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.

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Can anyone interpret how AdAge determined their Top 10 list for "outstanding accomplishment, growth, business and buzz among magazines?" Sure, it's been a tough year fiscally for all publications, but listicles in general are tough if they rely on "fuzzy math" to determine criteria such as oustandingness and growth.

Just looking at the front two contestants, The Economist and Women's Health, you see that while both publications saw a general increase in sales, ad pages, and subscriptions, WH had much larger percentage increases than The Economist in every category. The Economist may have had more ad pages overall, but they are still far below the numbers of New York magazine or Conde Nast Traveler, who nonetheless saw decreases in their pages and are featured much lower on the Top Ten list.

Make up your mind, AdAge: either create an easy formula for quantifying a magazine's success and share it with the rest of the class, or think of a more inventive way to celebrate magazines than another useless list that is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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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… 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?

• Rupert Murdoch buys Dow Jones. For real, this time.

• Which kinda makes this whole "Bancrofts Close to Accepting Murdoch Bid" story sort of outdated. Then again, who cares? It's over!!

• After her catastrophic television debut last week (a.k.a. the funniest thing we've seen all month) the big question on everyone's mind is: will Merry Miller will get another on-air opportunity? "Perhaps, if it's done on tape, but not live," says Debbie Downer Jessica Stedman-Guff, a.k.a. exec producer of ABCNewsNow. Sigh. The show's over, people.

• Ad sales/readership for Women's Health have never been, well, healthier.

• Jeff Zucker on Ben Silverman: "Ben brings great enthusiasm, optimism and energy, so it's always exciting to have Ben around because his enthusiasm and excitement is boundless." How…enthusiastic. And exciting!

• Citizen journalism: it's not just for underfunded barely read news publications anymore.

• Jeffrey Katzenberg on Joel Siegel: "He understood that behind every movie was a person, a human being, somebody who had poured their heart and soul out for a year or two or three and he cared."

• How do television networks and advertisers count the number of viewers on the Web? On one hand…at least for reruns of The Facts of Life and Mr. Belvedere. ZING!

• Meanwhile, a Murdoch-owned WSJ "would be a horror show," says an apparently still-interested Tina Brown.

• Turns out dangling prepositions, misplaced modifiers and syntax errors could (mis)spell disaster for would-be online daters.

• Women's Health is so green it's actually blue.

• Just because Kate Spade is now owned by Liz Claiborne Inc. doesn't mean their ads won't still be elitist, and really, really expensive.