New York Times editor Bill Keller sent out a very foreboding email memo to his staff today, warning that the paper would need to cut 100 newsroom jobs from its editorial staff of about 1,250 by the end of the year. Check out his full internal memo, including details of buyouts vs. layoffs, inside.

At some point the New York daily tabloids are going to become a luxury instead of a necessity. That day has apparently arrived at the New York Times Metro Desk. The NYO is reporting that the Metro Desk has been informed that, as of today, if you want the paper you now gots to pay for it.

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?

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.”

It might just be wishful thinking on his part, but here’s what Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter had to say to the New York Observer at a book party last night about. A good attitude can get you far in life, you know.

In some ways the story of McKinsey evaluations at Condé Nast is the perfect story. All summer long it’s been like watching a train wreck in the best way: We know the end is going to be gruesome, but we’re waiting with bated breath to see just how just how gruesome, just how far the blood will splatter, just how deep editorial budgets will be cut. With the end in sight, the latest round of odds-making and gossip-mongering.

Yesterday, the New York Observer took their turn in the age-old tradition of reporting on Matt Drudge‘s demise. Every so often some editor or reporter notices a new sliver of damning evidence, surely marking the end for the Drudge Report, and decides that this time it might just be enough to squash the seminal ring-wing news aggregator once and for all. But as a notable wordsmith once said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Yesterday, Sam Sifton was named successor to Frank Bruni as New York Times food critic. Despite laments at Bruni’s departure, devoted foodies may welcome the choice: where Bruni is an eater, Sifton is a chef: the former writes in Born Round of inhaling cold sesame noodles on his futon, while his successor will teach you how to make them.

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller announced Frank Bruni’s replacement as the Times’ restaurant critic — culture editor Sam Sifton — in an email to his staff this afternoon. Sifton, ultimately the “obvious and eccentric choice” for Keller, won out over two or three other Times writers and Brett Anderson of the Times-Picayune, the only external candidate.

NYT Co. PR chief Catherine Mathis resigned yesterday to take up a post at the ratings agency Standards & Poor’s. It’s no secret the Times has been suffering a barrage of bad press this year, mostly to do with its finances. So should this resignation come as a surprise, or is Mathis just an early casualty of the new media PR world?

What cracks grown (and sometimes Pulitzer Prize-winning) women up more than hearing the real names of private parts? Not a damn thing.