Media Mob has learned that former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will write a new column for Slate beginning tomorrow. The column will appear every other week and it'll be about government, regulation and finance.

"He's going to be doing a regular thing," said Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of the Slate Group. "It'll be heavily about the financial crisis and fixing financial markets and the economy generally."

The column will be titled: The Best Policy.

Mr. Weisberg said that he was lobbying him to do it for months. Cliff Sloan, the publisher of Slate, knew Mr. Spitzer back during their Harvard Law days, and Mr.  read more »

TiVo has taken a step toward building Living Room 2.0 by partnering with Blip.tv, the New York-based online videoblogging and production company. TiVo will distribute shows including Golf Girl TV, a biweekly golf news and gossip segment, Political Lunch, which includes "cold cuts" from the world of politics online, and DadLabs, a funny tips and stories show for fathers.

Advertising Age reports that "4.2 million subscribers, and test whether the genre has legs off the PC."

Here's more from the article:

But do TV-scale audiences await? And will advertisers respond? Andrea Kerr Redniss, managing director at Optimedia, sees the shows as opportunities to do product integrations on the cheap.

 read more »

In a memo sent out this morning mere hours after the publishing world was stunned by news of a major reorganization at Random House, Simon & Schuster C.E.O. Carolyn Reidy told staff that 35 jobs would be cut in what she called an unavoidavble response to the "current bookselling marketplace and what may very well be a prolonged period of economic instability."

"We have literally examined our budget line by line to find those areas large and small where we might further economize," Ms. Reidy's note said.

Those affected have been informed, according to our sources, and while most of the cuts affect people holding administrative positions in sales and operations, at least one editor, Denise Roy, who has been an editor at S&S for more than 13 years, has also lost her job.  read more »

Readers of the print edition of The New York Times—they're out there somewhere—were treated to a bit of creative whimsy in the art accompanying Danny Hakim's A1 story about former New York Governor Mario Cuomo's unwillingness to pose for an official portrait.

To illustrate the story, the paper used four imaginary portraits by illustrator Thomas Fuchs done in the signature styles of Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, and Robert Crumb. (The images can be seen here.)

And while readers should be thankful Mr. Fuchs didn't go for, say Francis Bacon or—shudder—Jake and Dinos Chapman, the illustrator needn't have bothered with the Warhol knockoff since Mr. Cuomo has already been portrayed by the artist for the September 1985 cover of Manhattan, Inc.  read more »

Myrna Blyth, the former editor of Ladies Home Journal and self-described 'only republican in women's publishing' has been named editor-in-chief of something called Betty Confidential—a site which describes itself as "Your Best Friend. Only Better"—according to a release.

Ms. Blyth maintains a blog called Blyth Times and writes a column for The National Review called Blyth Spirit. (Are you sensing a theme?)

Full release after the jump:  read more »

Here are the two memos that accompanied Random House C.E.O. Markus Dohle's big announcement this morning. The first concerns the elimination of Steve Rubin's job at the top of Doubleday and the possibility of his being appointed to a new job within the company. The second concerns Irwyn Applebaum, who will be leaving Random House now that his division there has been dismantled and absorbed into other parts of the company.

MARKUS DOHLE

CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF BERTELSMANN AG

December 3, 2008

TO EVERYONE AT RANDOM HOUSE, INC.

As a result of the reorganization of the adult trade publishing groups at Random House Inc., announced today, the position of President and Publisher of the Doubleday Publishing Group has been eliminated. I am currently in discussions with STEPHEN RUBIN about creating a new role for him at Random House, Inc., working directly with me. As you know, Steve has successfully led Doubleday for almost two decades and is universally respected and admired throughout the industry for both his publishing expertise and management skills.

I know you will join me in expressing appreciation to Steve for his leadership of Doubleday.  read more »

There will be no layoffs enacted at Random House today. According to Random House spokeswoman Carol Schneider, but the individual publishers at the top of the newly realligned groups will soon size up all the people now under their jurisdiction and "may have to make some difficult choices."

"If the layoffs are nececessary, those decisions are going to be made as objectively as possible and as quickly as possible, but I would venture to guess not in the next week or so," Ms. Schneider said. "This is a big reorganization."

Ms. Schneider, who is ordinarily the publicity director for Random House's flagship division rather than the whole house, said she is handling all press calls on today's news, while corporate spokesman Stuart Applebaum, who might normally be expected to be the point person on it, is excising himself because the dissolution of the Bantam Dell division involves the departure of his brother and longtime colleague Irwyn.

The time bomb that was Random House for the past five months has finally exploded, as new C.E.O. Markus Dohle deployed a jaw-dropping memo this morning detailing a reorganization of the adult trade program that will see Bantam publisher Irwyn Applebaum and Doubleday publisher Steve Rubin step down and their imprints spread around to the company's other divisions.

Much, much more on this soon, but for now, the basics:

—Doubleday's flagship imprint and its Nan A. Talese unit will fall under the command of Sonny Mehta at Knopf.

—Crown will incorporate Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion, and WaterBrook Multnomah, with Crown publisher Jenny Frost presiding over all of them.  read more »

What are people saying about David Gregory, NBC News' heir presumptive for Tim Russert's job on Meet the Press? Felix Gillette talks to some who say things like, “He’s got great instincts when it comes to what area of stories to probe...I don’t think there’s much of a learning curve when it comes to politics. He knows that world as well as anyone. He gets great stuff out of people" and "He can be an aggressive questioner—as he showed in the White House Press Room. He was a dramatic and good and persistent questioner. And he’s not afraid to be disliked.”

Is Tina Brown "like Schindler, in a skirt-suit"? That's what John Koblin calls her when it comes to bringing laid off writers into her Daily Beast. But what can they hope to be paid? Plus: January Groans: Mags' Lean Month Gets Downright Gaunt.

Can a 26-year-old consultant who took Columbia's Publishing Course and worked for a time at Little, Brown save publishing? Leon Neyfakh meets Eric Wolff, who says, "Truth is, there isn’t a whole lot of reason for a big media company to own a book company unless it wants to be in that business... Corporations generally want growth stories, and there’s no growth in books.”

Plus: Missbehave's new editor... Superstar avatars... Murdoch the Magnificent.

"There’s no truth to it," said Si Newhouse in a statement sent through a spokeswoman to wsj.com today, regarding the rumors that Anna Wintour is on the verge of being replaced by Carine Roitfeld as editor of Vogue. "This is the silliest rumor I ever heard."

Gawker wrote in an item earlier today—filed under the header "Rumormonger"—that Mr. Newhouse left for France early to seal a deal with Ms. Roitfeld.

So what does it mean that Mr. Newhouse released this statement? It means it's probably not going to happen all that soon! Mr. Newhouse very rarely delivers statements, even through his spokeswoman Maurie Perl, so the fact that he felt compelled (from Europe!) to take care of this is a rather strong vote of confidence for Ms. Wintour.

At least for the time being.