Wow — whoda thunk. Once up on a time, Ron Burkle and Bill Clinton were thick as thieves, BFFs schmoozing up a lucrative storm for Burkle’s Yucaipa and (allegedly) flying though the sky on Burkle’s private jet with pretty young things. Now they are buds no more, relationship severed and reputations distanced and chummy lovefests replaced by snippy articles wherein the playboy billionaire disses his former best bud for being a waste of his precious time.

Bloomberg, which acquired Business Week last month, announced this week that they were looking to layoff 100 positions or 25% of its staff. Judging from Twitter it looks like the layoffs took place today (h/t FishbowlNY).

The Washington Post became the largest name in news to issue guidelines about acceptable use of social networking platforms, namely Twitter and Facebook. But when paidContent ran the rules in their entirety, it fueled a firestorm against the policies on the web. Today, the Post‘s Howard Kurtz responds, but seems hesitant and provides little convincing support for the rules.

As we reported last week, Bloomberg LLC had expressed interest in BusinessWeek late in the process, but was given extra time to perform due diligence. Well it appears that the bid has come in, according to Jon Fine, making them the presumptive favorite in purchasing the troubled title.

The media loves one-year anniversaries, hundred-day anniversaries — any excuse to zoom in on the thing they’ve been covering all along. This week’s one-year anniversary of the financial crisis — a gold mine for business magazines! Or a call for gold spray paint, if you’re BusinessWeek.

The deadline for final bids for BusinessWeek came and went yesterday, and its unclear whether or not Bloomberg LP would bid. The financial media giant is reportedly very interested in acquiring the troubled financial magazine, but since they got involved so late into the process, they will get an extra couple of days to perform due diligence and decide upon its bid.

While the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment has never been successfully challenged politically, it is now being challenged economically: as a practical matter, the press is not so free. So, how to pay for the vital probings on behalf of the entire polity, in this time of forced deprivation?