They just happen to be in the "digital" realm. Which, for all intents and purposes, means "blogging." [MediaShift]

A female former ad exec at Window Media's gay paper Southern Voice is claiming harassment and discrimination in a lawsuit that states she was "subjected to a constant barrage of graphic sexual language and conduct involving gay male sex" in the workplace. Apparently: "Numerous male employees and managers of Defendant discussed in graphic terms oral and anal sex with other men; displayed pictures of men with erect penises on their computers; and, in general, treated the workplace as a place to discuss and engage in gay male sex."

Huh.

Without rampant jokes about fudge packing and fisting, we'd be hard pressed to believe Queerty could get published everyday.

Page Six outs the Times staffer who uttered the gay slur (fag? faggot?) as Michele McNally, the director of photography and assistant managing editor. But she will go unpunished, because the slur's receiving party is a mere freelancer — which has the Times gay brigade in an uproar.

Forty-six million dollars later, Morgan Stanley has settled a sex discrimination suit that charged the firm with enacting a glass ceiling for its lady employees. As part of the agreement, the bank "would change training and management- development programs in Morgan Stanley's wealth-management division," to help put women on an equal playing field.

Portfolio will then be commissioned to do a follow up on "What's Wrong With This Picture?," with the ladies of the publicly-traded financial sector. Styled by Maxim fashion editor Stan Williams, of course.

We'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention that MTV is denying our report that they've gone ahead and canceled TRL. Oh, and they're also claiming they didn't kill VH1 Classic and such.

"There is no truth to the rumors about TRL, MTV2 and VH1 Classic going away," states David Bittler, a spokesperson for MTV Networks. "Some of the staff have been let go from positions within those networks, but those networks will continue. And from the consumer's point of view, there will be no changes to the programming on those networks or on [TRL]."

So we'll take their word for it.* Until we see Vanessa Minnillo begging the Naked Cowboy to let her introduce his next song. Then again, her ass is quitting anyhow.

* Well, not really. It's kinda hard to believe their official denial when more than one now-former MTV staffers has told us TRL is a goner.

So, about our earlier report that Tina Exharos, MTV's exec VP of marketing, was fired? (And staffers were thrilled?) At least one insider says it's not the case — and that she's still in the office.

Files a tattler: "Tina was walking down the hallways saying to people, 'I know it's on Jossip, but it's not true, I have not been let go.'"

All of which brews speculation that either a) She may not even know yet that she's fired; or b) She's choosing not to say anything.

But, either way, TRL is still canceled. So there's THAT to think about.

Unfortunately, MTV doesn't publish a newsletter chronicling who they're firing. Even on MTV Overdrive, nothing. Can you believe? Must be something about those cutbacks.

Alas, since the updates keep coming in (read this morning's lengthy report here), we'll do our best to chronicle who's leaving 1515 Broadway and its diaspora, and other related news. Like who will be around to fetch coffee, and who will be around to have coffee fetched.

And so begins our regularly updated feed:

• VH1 communications chief Laura Nelson, who's been there since '02 and came over from Comedy Central, is a goner, says a knowledgeable source. We're told Laura is a "really a good person" and among the well-liked crowd.

• More names are sure to surface, but it's becoming quite clear that MTV prez Judy McGrath and MTV Music Group head Van Toffler have "fired their entire inner circle of long time advisors, and very close friends," says a well-placed insider.

• As we reported earlier, marketing EVP Tina Exharos has been let go. Now we're hearing that's one axing many MTV staffers are pleased about. Same feelings for the removal of programming EVP Paul DeBenedittis. "Good riddance," says one tattler.

• One insider says all these firings will be a precursor for a major announcement: the retiring of TRL. With just 300,000 viewers tuning in on any day, the veteran flagship show has "outstayed its welcome." But we're told "any announcement will probably come later on [...] after they've removed the personnel infrastructure."

(And yes, our mothers are so proud we've managed to incorporate Anna Nicole in all of this.)

Exclusive

The MTV bloodbath isn't over with yet. Not only has VH1 Classics been dismissed along with Affiliate Marketing & Sales and pretty much all of MTV World, but we hear top ranking executives – who impressively survived previous rounds of layoffs – are getting pink slipped as well.

An insider tells us that at the top is Salli Frattini, senior vice president of production and – more notably – best friend to MTV prez Judy McGrath. It's Sally who was behind big events like the VMAs and Movie Awards. She's also been there since Day One, a tattler tells us. And now she's gone, as is everyone under her. So too is Kathy Flynn, the SVP for production events, and her staff.

Elsehwhere, in a shock to even the most cynical staffers, we hear executive VP of programming Paul DeBenedittis is also out the door. No matter that he's best friends with MTV programming president Brian Graden.

And with MTV World folding, you can also wave goodbye to Nusrat Durrani, the department's head.

CONTINUED »

With those 250 layoffs at MTV, surely Viacom isn't expecting staffers to keep quiet. And – good news for us! – they aren't. Reports an insider:

Apparently the Affiliate Marketing and Sales Department called a meeting at 1 and told staffers that their beloved boss Jessica Heacock had gotten the ax. They then basically told them that many of them wouldn't survive the day and politely asked them to get back to work. So basically, MTV is treating staffers with the same respect they always do, at least now they're offering the hope of pathetically tiny severance packages.

To make matters worse, the severance packages will be doled out in Jamba Juice cards.

Former NY1 reporter and sometime weekend anchor Adele Sammarco has filed a lawsuit claiming the Time Warner-owned news network was a petri dish for sexual harassment. She claims she was "attacked" by anchor Gary Anthony Ramsay and had to put up with a Photoshopped version of herself with big boobs that was plastered around the office. All of which caused her to file a complaint with superiors and, she says, cost her the job.

Meanwhile, in the most dreaded of workplace scenarios, peons known as newsroom assistants even had a nickname for her.

The suit, filed in 2002, also claims news assistants regularly referred to her by the acronym "BBB" and later told her the nickname stood for "Big Butt Booty."

Though "BBB" still remains worse than Kate White nickname around the office, "YFB."

CONTINUED »

Exclusive

Is Bauer Publishing one of publishing's least friendly employers for those with XX chromosomes? That's what multiple current and former staffers, from the business and publishing side of the business, have been telling us. Forget VNU's dildo-slash-sexual harassment doozy of a lawsuit. If you're a woman who feels uncomfortable in the workplace, there's a good chance Bauer is your boss.

And most of the blame, we're told, falls on chief Hubert Boehle. One former Bauer employee calls the CEO an "egomaniacal misogynist," and that seems to be the kindest of compliments we've heard.

Bauer, of course, was in the news most recently for axing Debra Birnbaum as Life & Style's editor-in-chief, even after she managed a staggering 49 percent increase in circulation only to see the floor fall out on her. Her replacement was Mark Pasetsky, the mag's general manager who – we've been telling you – doesn't have the confidence of many staffers.

One current staffer claims Brinbaum's ousting may have much to do with the fact that she's a lady. "It's pretty obvious [Boehle] had a problem with a woman having so much success," tattles our insider. But an ex-staffer questions why Boehle – who has only one woman, the relatively powerless teen group president Lynette Gallagher, on his executive roster – would replace a woman with the openly gay Pasetsky. Perhaps it's because, as our source tells it, he's the "bottom" in this relationship.

I was very surprised when he put then openly gay Pasetsky in the GM role. He keeps most of his female and effeminate staff in editorial where they stay under his thumb. Of course, I have always held the opinion that his interest in Mark was a little deeper than general manager.

Bauer is an atrocity of an employer. Ask anyone who has worked for Carol Brooks at First For Women. During my time at Bauer she once told me that "employees at Bauer were the most 'litigous' she'd ever seen". Of course, that's what happens when you fire people for getting married/pregnant/having a life and take it as a personal affront.

So Hubert isn't the panty-chaser we took him to be, but rather on the verge of a Jann Wenner coming out story? We'd love to be the ones to report it. Or perhaps its the childish story more suited for Bauer's J-14. Either way, the infractions against women apparently continue to mount. And soon enough, Rachel Sklar is gonna hear about it. You were warned.

On the heels of respected Washington Post reporters Jim VandeHei and John Harris defecting for a web operation comes word that the D.C. rag is about to start evalutating employees in a plotline we're pretty sure The Office has already torn through. Multiple-choice reviews – with options like "meeting" or "exceeding expectations" will be attached to each newsroom staffers' HR docs. And – can you believe?! – WaPo journos aren't enthused over the grammer school grading system.

“Obviously, the timing of me doing this is unfortunate, because some people—a minority of people—think this is a prelude to getting rid of people,” said [Peter Perl, assistant managing editor for training and career development].

Now what would give them that idea?

When we joked about MSNBC peons printing out resumes at the cable net's Secaucus headquarters in preparation of their near-certain slashings (courtesy NBC 2.0 and the merging of MSNBC and NBC News operations at 30 Rock), we were only kidding. We spoke in jest. We made an obvious anecdotal hypotehical. We didn't expect it to actually happen — but a MSNBC insider tells us at least one PA has been caught siphoning GE-owned paper and printer time to spit out "about a dozen" copies of her resume and cover letter.

"It was late in the day [last week]," we're told, "and I doubt she thought anyone would notice, or even care. But she didn't know if anyone was at the printer, since it's situated in a partitioned-off area away from the cubicles. So when she went to go pick up her resumes, a producer type who was also printing something out and rifling through the papers coming out of the printer saw the resume copies."

We're told the exchange between the two consisted only of a quizzical look and a warning that "she probably shouldn't be doing that here." Or, at the very least, send your resume to the printer used by pages to deliver scripts to on-air anchors. Almost nobody uses that one.

The masthead slashing party continues, with today's edition brought to you by the letter D. For Dennis Publishing. Or dickhead.

Just put through the chopping block was Andy Ryan, Blender's solo full-time designer. The 30-something received the news of his axing at a most appropriate time: while on the way to the airport to catch a London flight to be with his dying father. It was his boss, Dennis group creative director Andy Turnbull, who delivered the news — a sad fact when you consider the two Andys were quite friendly. Ryan, in fact, was well liked among the entire staff.

Meanwhile, instinctive chatter suggests Dennis brass felt it would be easier for Andy to deal with two catastrophes at once, instead of one after the one. That's Dennis, for ya: the publisher who cares.

Ever since Lauren Weisberger lit the fire underneath the visibility of assistants – and Jann Wenner's efforts to make their unpaid versions into a brand extension – you knew reality show producers weren't going to be able to be hands off about the flackdom industry for very long. (The Hills doesn't count.) So we wore a shade of unsurprised yesterday evening when we were tipped off about the beginnings of a new show staged around the latte mules, dry cleaning chauffeurs, and day planner nazis.

“The Assistants” is a new reality TV series which follows the fraught, fabulous and fascinating lives of the personal assistants to the stars and captains of industry. The candid series provides an inside view into the power and ego obsessed worlds of entertainment and business. In the spirit of The Devil Wears Prada, “The Assistants” celebrates the long suffering personal assistant as the undervalued lynch pin that powers the engine room of their bosses lives. Forget filing, “The Assistants” reveals the humble assistant as family mediator, confidante, psychologist, motivator and public relations damage controller. It’s not just about mastering a soy decafe caramel latte with two sugars and finding Egyptian cotton sheets with a 400 thread count. It’s a calling.

And it's calling you. Production for the pilot is imminent, which means your headshots better be in pristine condition. And don't kid us about not having any head shots — when your C-list agent dropped you, it was either cater waiter or executive assistant.

THE ASSISTANTS - our new TV show [The Cool Hunter]

Risking your life in a foreign land to find out whether it's safer to travel by taxi or rickshaw and which back alley shop offers the best deals on fabric, it turns out, pays just as crappy as it does not risking your life, sitting behind a desk, and reporting by phone. In Sunday's Times, Warren St. John took us inside the life of your lowly travel guide writer, often a recent college grad on a quest to see the world on someone else's dime. We've oft wondered of these faceless scribes behind the words of Fodor's and Lonely Planet as we navigate the tro-tro system in Ghana or climb the stone temples in Siem Reap: Are they a brilliant class of twentysomethings marching through the third world, getting paid handsomely and writing postcards home from regions their parents warned them about? Hah. Hah, hah. Hah.

It's difficult to generalize about the pay scale for guide writing because it varies so widely, though most guide writers seem to agree that the wages are not enough. A writer working from scratch on a comprehensive guide to a country may get an advance of $100,000, from which a year or more of travel expenses must be deducted. Some companies offer guide writers royalties, like conventional publishers. But most guide writing is decidedly less lucrative, and expenses are almost never covered separately. MTV and Frommer's, for example, are collaborating to publish a budget travel series for Europe for which they are paying writers $1,500 for roughly 150 pages of work.

Going on an average of 250 words per page, that's 37,500 words MTV is requiring. At $1,500 per gig, that's exactly four cents per word. It's a sad day when the Village Voice's pay scale looks enviable.

A Job With Travel but No Vacation [Warren St. John, NYT]

The National Organization for Women, along with other leading women's organization, ain't having this Elizabeth Vargas bullshit.

Vargas and ABC claim her depature from the World News Tonight anchor chair was brought upon by her pregnancy and secured by their want to offer viewers routine; by putting Charlie Gibson in the chair permanently, Vargas returning and recovering Bob Woodruff's iffy status wouldn't confuse newswatchers.

Or, as NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation, and the National Council of Women's Organizations believe, Vargas was unceremoniously ousted from the top spot for being in possession of XX chromosomes. And she may very well have been, as the chattering classes suspect. But given Katie Couric's ascension to the CBS news throne, it's going to be hard to hear their argument over the roars of skepticism in September.

Was Elizabeth Vargas' departure really voluntary? [Broadsheet]

Wow, New York Times. We knew you couldn't go through a whole article on interns and blogging without mentioning Gawker, but we never thought you'd be able to discuss getting fired from your job for blogging without namedropping Dooce. A hand well played.

Interns? No Bloggers Need Apply [Anna Bahney, NYT]