Former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl guested on NPR’s Leonard Lopate show yesterday to talk about Gourmet‘s “shocking” demise, and the immediate aftermath (they had to be out of the office almost immediately). Also, how she was informed of the news and how she informed her staff.

The headline in today’s “Media Ink” column: “Condé Nast hires crisis intervention expert” My reaction: Are you freaking KIDDING me? That one would have been useful, oh, three years ago. Or two years ago. Or one year ago. But of all the things to spend dwindling resources on…

File this in the party, chit chat, rumor mill, category. According to a source, a Conde Nast editor at the Valentino fete the other night was telling party goers that Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter — who has apparently returned from his trip to Bermuda — is offering laid-off Vanity Fair staffers a unique employment opportunity.

As if the McKinsey evaluation uncertainty that’s been hanging over 4 Times Sq. these past few months isn’t bad enough, Vanity Fair honcho Graydon Carter apparently couldn’t even be bothered to show up to relay yesterday’s bad layoff news himself. Business as usual?

Shortly after Conde Nast announced this week’s closures Mediaite obtained a memo to the digital staff from Condé Nast Digital svp Drew Schutte suggesting the clock was ticking with regards to the websites of the shuttered magazines. Does this mean we should just expect more of the same on the Conde Nast Digital front? Meaning: not much.

Perhaps McKinsey should have hired Jon Stewart to do their Condé Nast evaluating! On the Daily Show last night Stewart expressed dismay over all the people who’d lost their jobs during this week’s Condé shuttering before proposing an alternate solution to closing the magazines altogether: marry them! It makes for some interesting results.

Slate’s Jack Shafer comparing the fate of Conde Nast to that of that other overreaching, reality-ignoring American powerhouse, General Motors. Next up: Graydon Carter and Anna Wintour fly to Washington in their private jets to beg for a bailout!

the shuttering of Gourmet remains to many the biggest shock of today’s Condé Nast layoffs. The fate of its equally well-known editor Ruth Reichl is unknown right now, though considering the company plans to keep both the publishing and television arm of Gourmet active chances are they will find a place for her. That said, what does Reichl’s precarious position say about the fate of Condé’s other high profile editors?

The wait is, sadly, over. After months of speculation, the painful results of McKinsey’s evaluation of Condé Nast are in and it’s not pretty. Condé has just announced that it plans to shutter Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride, and Elegant Bride. CEO Chuck Townsend’s full memo after the jump.

UPDATE: Drew Schutte: “Cookie.com and Gourmet.com sites will remain up at least through the end of the year.”

Vanity Fair pokes fun at the ongoing McKinsey evaluation — which may or may not have made a stop at Graydon Carter‘s office — and the ‘benefits’ they are worried about losing.

Everyone who’s paying attention knows that Condé Nast is in trouble. But given how little substantiation there has been as to the scope of that trouble, there’s been quite a lot of writing about it, often taking on tut-tutting moralistic tones. Why do media watchers so love to pile on Condé?

With all the recent talk of McKinsey and the demise of Condé Nast, it is with some nostalgia (and perhaps some little schadenfreude) that we recall a time when a ride in the Condé elevators was enough of a life- (and closet!) changing experience that the Times felt the need to devote an entire column to it.

Well this puts a new spin on the Condé Nast McKinsey saga. WWD’s Memo Pad is reporting that despite all the recent focus on the recommended 25% budget cuts across the board, reported earlier this week, the powers that be at Conde may still opt to close down some magazines altogether. Who knew that was even an option?

As the media world awaits the official word (i.e. layoff news) from McKinsey’s summer-long interrogation, rumored to arrive sometime in mid-October both Crain’s and the New York Observer are reporting that 25% budgetary cuts across the board are the targets currently being delivered to editors and publishers in the form of “McKinsey binders…complete with pie graphs and charts.”

The money’s not coming into Condé Nast like it used to, and the company’s days of lavish spending have to end. Will Graydon Carter, who reportedly makes over $2 million a year, be able to survive at the company in his current incarnation?

Is this evidence of McKinsey at work?! Mediaite was just forwarded this internal memo from Conde Nast to all employees regarding new expense guidelines. And by extraneous expenses we, of course mean newspapers. No more free newspapers! None. Unless you can’t find them online (which more or less includes the entire Conde offering) or in the Conde Library, at which point you may be allowed to expense. Full memo after the jump.

The Observer’s John Koblin reports that the headline coming out of a recent publisher’s lunch hosted by Conde Nast President Chuck Townsend? Your magazine must make a profit. Shockwaves soon rippled throughout 4 Times Square as everyone was quick to wonder – which of the well-heeled titles are currently profitable and who should be polishing off their resumes?

Everyone wants to know what McKinsey will do with Conde Nast? And how will they do it? And what will it feel like? We’re here to answer all your McKinsey questions.