Last night, New York public radio station WNYC threw a gala at Gotham Hall to celebrate its recent acquisition of New York's classical radio station WQXR and honor its former owner, The New York Times Co.

Hosted by Alec Baldwin, the evening featured performances by folksinger Judy Collins and opera diva Deborah Voigt. David Sanger, a New York Times correspondent and host of the "Washington Report" on WQXR -- and grandson of the station's founder Elliott Sanger -- presented the Times Co. with an award, accepted by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., commemorating the company's stewardship of WQXR since 1944.

Later, Baldwin announced that the winner of the evening's raffle would get a radio -- actually, an Internet radio tuned to WQXR. "The New York Times got a piece of glass, for the millions and millions of dollars they've coughed up," he said. "A piece of glass. The winner of the raffle gets a radio."

(Video and more pictures after the jump)

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As bad as the market is right now for print, niche magazines have it a little bit easier, if only because their consumer base is made up of devotees. Why else would Condé Nast be able to keep two golf magazines afloat while having to cut Gourmet? Niche markets have niche advertising, which also helps: The fashion world might be hurting overall, but the supply and demand for yachting goods has probably not taken as much of a dip in their sales records.

With that in mind, we'd like to welcome into the world the first lifestyle magazine made for nurses: Scrubs (Zach Braff not included), which will hit stores nursing apparel stores November 15, already with a paid circulation of 350,000. Says Michael Singer, CEO of Scrubs' founding sponsor Strategic Partners Inc., "Healthcare is one of the few sectors of the economy adding jobs." Ironic, no?

Scrubs also has a pretty good pedigree: its editorial director is Catherine Ettlinger, a former Elle editor and managing editor at Mademoiselle.

By the way, we highly suggest you check out Scrubsmag.com, which has articles like "The First Date Checklist for Nurses" and "Top 10 Signs Your Patient May Be a Drug Seeker."

Full press release, after the jump.

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MediaNews Group, one of the largest newspaper companies in the U.S., has decided to launch pay walls on Web sites of two of its papers early next year.

The pay walls will first go into effect for the The Enterprise-Record in Chico, Calif. and The York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, and then may be extended to other MediaNews newspaper properties, Editor & Publisher reports.

"We wanted to get sites that were not metro sites for the same reason that you don't open on Broadway," Howard Saltz, MediaNews' vice president for content development, told E&P. "But not a site that has Web traffic so small that the change would not affect anything." However, what these papers will put behind a pay wall and when exactly we can expect to see them rolled out has yet to be decided.

The decision to launch the pay walls comes six months after MediaNews outlined its new interactive strategy in a May memo, paving the way for online paid content. We'll be keeping an eye on how this latest pay wall plan works out for this paper publisher, and keep you updated on any developments. This probably won't be the last we'll be hearing about publishers unveiling pay wall plans in the next few months.

MediaNews To Launch Partial Pay Walls At Two Newspaper Sites --Editor & Publisher

Related: Poll: Will Paywalls Save Newspapers?

If you've ever wondered what goes on inside an advertising agency, today's mediabistro.com Morning Media Menu podcast is one for you.

This morning, hosts Jason Boog of GalleyCat and AgencySpy's Matt Van Hoven welcomed Alain Sylvain, the managing director of New York-based agency Redscout, who discussed a new video series initiative his company is launching with PSFK that seeks to innovate account planning.

What is account planning, you ask? "Planning is really a function within agencies...that was designed to enhance the development of ads," Alain explained. "It was meant to enhance it with the voice of the consumer. It was an effort to make the creative development more tapped into what consumers really wanted and really felt...But over the years the role of planning and the role of planners has been a little unclear."

The new video series seeks to answer questions that agencies and planners have about planning. In the broader sense, Jason and Matt were wondering if planning could help the struggling media world of magazines, newspapers and books. Alain said he believed there was still a way to update the current approach to long-form content, from books to feature length articles. "You will see a lot of former journalists go into planning," Alain said. "What you won't see is planners going into publishing...But if I was a young planner frustrated at an agency, I would definitely consider going to work for a publishing house. It's basically the same discipline."

You can listen to all the past podcasts at BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321.

Gourmet, now a casualty of the great Condé Nast reorganization of 2009, is being mourned by the foodie community -- and probably will be missed for quite some time.

But for its former employees, the magazine was more than a place for lush photos of culinary treats and luxe recipes; it was home. As the staffers packed up the office and said goodbye to the magazine, departing associate art director Kevin Demaria snapped some photos of the sad scene. Lovingly done, the images are a commentary on the indescribable feelings of recently laid off employees, especially when the magazine where they have worked is ceasing to exist completely. It may be cliché, but in this case a picture is worth a thousand words.

View them all on Demaria's blog.

Earlier: One Last Gourmet Party

As international newswires like AFP and The Associated Press begin to regulate how much copy can be taken from their articles, it's not just blogs that are going to feel the pinch. Major newspapers also rely on these news organizations from everything from their Op-Ed pieces to their front page cover stories. And with many North American papers trying to hyper-localize their product instead of deal with the cost of foreign correspondents, they will be needing these news agencies more than ever.

Or will they? The Tribune Company announced yesterday that it will be conducting a trial run of its papers (mostly) free of news from The Associated Press to see if the papers can do without the service. Still, it's not much of an experiment: Sam Zell's papers will still be relying on Reuters, GlobalPost, and other international news orgs. Whatever Tribune is trying to prove here is already rendered moot on their dependence on outside news bureaus. Ironically, one of the places Tribune will be taking their news from is The New York Times, which is entering a relationship with The Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization made up of ex-Tribune employees, for content for its local Chicago edition.

We've asked a similar question before in our polls, but we'd like to hear your thoughts: Can publications exist without independent news bureaus? And if not, what kind of content should publishers be willing to pay these outside services for?

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TVNewser: Comcast is coming close to closing its deal with General Electric over NBC Universal. An announcement might come as soon as this week.

FishbowlDC: Rumble in the Washington Post newsroom: Henry Allen punched Manuel Roig-Franzia in the face last night.

PaidContent: Time Inc.'s Vivek Shah is leaving the company after 15 years.

Editor & Publisher: Gannett has issued a list of priorities to its papers' editors, asking them to beef up investigative reporting, reposition Web sites for breaking news, and better engage young readers and Sunday readers.

New York Times: David Carr mourns the loss of the business press. Another casualty of the recession.

Broadcasting & Cable: An exclusive Q&A with Jay Leno. He talks about the negative press he's received recently and what's it's like to work at NBC: "I find there's a lot of anger at NBC. But it's like I say to the people who write the dramas: If I weren't doing this, it would be "Dateline" five nights a week or reality shows. We've kept work in California, we have 22 WGA writers, but there's always going to be anger and resentment. The last couple of weeks I've seen some articles that are a little more, 'It's not Jay's fault, its NBC's fault,' and that's OK, I get it. But when your name's on the thing, you take the hit and that's fine."

This weekend wasn't just Halloween in Manhattan, it was also the setting for the 40th Annual New York City Marathon, one of the most difficult (and longest running) endurance races in the world, and certainly one of the largest. It attracts professional athletes, celebrities, and your every day runners from around the world, who often train for months in preparation for the event.

And despite the wintry economic climate of the news world that makes the rest of us want to hide under the covers until we all have jobs again, this year's marathon also included some members of the media who certainly know something about endurance.

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The latest magazine to report layoffs is the gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate.

Mediaweek reports that the magazine laid off a handful of editorial and production staffers last week as it consolidates in the face of economic challenges.

Know anything else? Send us an email.

Layoffs Reach the Advocate--Mediaweek

Sue Simmons on on LX New York with fellow guest Andy Cohen, discussing her former drinking days

Sue Simmons, the WNBC-4 anchor who gained infamy for using the F-bomb on live television almost two years before Jenny Slate, confessed last week on WNBC's new show LX New York that in the 80's it wasn't unusual for her to show up to work a little bit tipsy. According to Simmons, "...that stopped in the mid '80s, late '80s, because I looked in the mirror before -- when I was about ready to go on the air -- and my eyes were red."

When the video of Simmons cursing on air surfaced in the spring of 2008, The New York Post was quick to jump on the theory that Simmons might still be boozing behind her desk. The Post culled its interviewees from employees of the restaurants where Simmons frequented before the show, where they remarked (anonymously, of course) that Simmons wasn't shy about her drinking habits before heading off to work at Channel 4.

That would seem to go against Simmons' current statement that she hasn't had a drink before work for years, and unfortunately this belated confession with alleged evidence to the contrary serves to strengthen what was originally just a gossip-based Post piece.

Full video of Simmons' on-air swearing and apology after the jump. NSFW language, obviously.

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Today, we received a formal announcement from The Financial Times regarding the return of columnist Martin Lukes. Announced the salmon-colored paper:

"On Thursday 5th November Martin Lukes, iconic leader, trendsetter, multiple award winner and former CEO of Atlanta-based a-b glöbâl, returns to the Financial Times with a new weekly print and online column."

According to the announcement, Lukes is currently serving the rest of his sentence for insider trading but will write his column from inside the prison, relaying information through his wife, Sherril. A financial paper publishing a column from a convicted white collar criminal while he's still behind bars would be an amazing story, if Lukes himself wasn't a complete fabrication.

Lukes, and the book he penned called Who Moved my BlackBerry?, are creations of FT writer Lucy Kellaway. It's sort of like Newsweek's Dan Lyon's creation of Fake Steve Jobs, without the very obvious satirical title.

Although Lukes stopped writing his original FT column after being arrested for insider trading in 2007, it seems like Kellaway has finally decided to resurrect the character. Could it have something to do with the fact that business journalism could use a laugh right now or is the FT poking fun at white collar criminals like Conrad Black writing for pubs like The Daily Beast from prison?

The full release about Lukes, after the jump.

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