Squires has spent the past few months convincing other publishers to join a new joint venture aimed at a market that doesn’t really exist yet–magazine-like publications to be delivered via e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet.

The idea: The new company, which will operate independently from the publishers that invest in it, will create a digital storefront where consumers can purchase and manage their subscriptions, which can be delivered to any device. The pitch: Control a direct relationship with consumers while gaining leverage with heavyweights like Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN).

Industry executives briefed on Squires’s plan say it has been well received by Time Inc.’s peers and that several major publishers, including Hearst and Condé Nast, are expected to sign on for the JV, which isn’t scheduled to debut until 2010. No comment from Hearst, Condé Nast or Time Inc., a unit of Time Warner (TWX).

Many of the venture’s big details have yet to be hammered down. At one point, for instance, Time Inc. had explored the idea of including newspapers in the new company’s offering, sources say. The JV may also want to include a noncontent partner as an investor, as Hulu did with Providence Equity and as Vevo, the “Hulu for music” JV that Universal Music is creating with Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, plans to do. That approach is supposed to appease antitrust regulators’ worries about a group of content companies banding together.

But the rough outlines of Squires’s plan are attractive enough to publishers, who are hopeful that mobile devices like the Kindle will create a new market for them. And if that market does show up, they want to make sure they’re the ones in charge of sales and distribution. That’s been a huge problem for the music industry, whose digital sales are essentially controlled by Apple. And it has already cropped up as a point of contention with Amazon, which currently handles sales for all content delivered via its Kindle reader.

Other selling points for the JV: The ability to set standards for mobile content and the ability to integrate advertising into the publications. One thing the company isn’t supposed to do: Create an e-reader itself.

The takeaway, via a Time Inc. presentation that has circulated among publishers: “our destiny with readers, advertisers and distributors … [is] in our hands.”

Of course, there are plenty of hurdles facing the joint venture, starting with the fact that media joint ventures have a checkered record at best (though Hearst and Condé, for instance, have already partnered on Comag, a wholesale distribution company). But there are bigger problems for Squires and company. For instance:

• They’ll have to convince consumers who already have billing relationships with Amazon, Apple and other vendors to sign up with yet another service.
• They’ll  have to convince device makers to play along with the strategy, which runs counter to many of their own plans. Both Amazon and Apple, for instance, have intentionally created closed systems that give them control of both devices and distribution.
• They’ll have to create content consumers want to buy. The new product can’t simply be a digital version of the magazines they’re already printing: That’s already available on the Web, and consumers have shown almost no interest in paying for it, and advertisers haven’t fully embraced it either.

So what exactly will the JV be selling? That’s probably the most difficult question for publishers to answer, made even more difficult because they don’t know what capabilities the e-readers of the future will boast. Apple for instance, refuses to even acknowledge to Time Inc. executives that it plans to produce a tablet device, let alone provide them with specs.

But publishers feel they’ve got nothing to lose by trying. “We know that traditional magazines are going away, and that magazines on the Web don’t work,” says a publishing executive working on the plan. “But this gives us a chance to serve the reader who will pay for content, and provide advertising that really works. Can you think of a better idea?”

While Squires solves that riddle, he’ll leave his day job as head of the “news business unit” (Time, Fortune, Money, etc.). In his place will be… Moore, who is already running the company’s style group.

I chatted briefly via email with Squires, who is good-natured about the assignment. But I have to take issue with him (and everyone else who uses this example) re iTunes. Apple (AAPL) didn’t prove that people are willing to pay for content online–we’d already seen that (at The Wall Street Journal, among other examples). Apple proved that people are willing to pay for portions–that would be songs–of products that were previously only sold in bundles–that would be CDs.

You can debate whether this was terrible for the music industry or simply the least-bad option. But I don’t think it makes sense to compare the experience of the music industry with news and other Web content that people aren’t used to paying for in any form.

Here’s my Q&A with Squires:

MediaMemo: I’m struck by Ann’s “genie” reference–are we meant to take that in a tongue-in-cheek way, or do you folks really think you can put the free-content genie back in the bottle? Or am I misinterpreting that?

John Squires: We’re not unrealistic about the challenge, but iTunes showed people will pay for something attractively packaged and fairly priced that they once got for free….We also wanted to get your attention. So I guess we’re genies.

MM: Do you imagine that Time Inc. will be taking content that’s currently available for free online and putting it behind a pay wall? Or are you more focused on creating new products you can charge for?

JS: This is part of what we’ll be testing. Certainly some online content will remain free because we’re eager to keep our large online audiences (over 26 million Nielsen uniques) and successful advertising model. Some other online content may be subscription-based. And the content we create for mobile readers will be a completely new experience, with different design and functions that we think consumers will want to pay for.

MM: Haven’t heard Time Inc.’s voice in the “Google isn’t playing fair” chorus. How much, if any, energy are you spending on getting the search engine to help you/take less from you, etc.?

JS: We’re not part of that chorus at the moment.

MM: Is this a permanent assignment or will you go back to News at some point?

JS: We’ll see what comes out of this assignment.

And here’s the companywide memo from Moore:

To:       Time Inc. Employees

From:   Ann Moore

Re: How to Put the Genie Back Into the Bottle; Special Assignment for John Squires

It won’t be a revelation to any of you that the publishing business is changing rapidly. While print magazines are not going away, and while we have built vibrant websites with over 26 million unique visitors and 750 million pages views each month, it’s increasingly clear that finding the right digital business model is crucial for the future of our business. We need to develop a strategy for the portable digital world and to refine our views on paid content.

Given the magnitude of the opportunity, I have asked John Squires to take on a new role and devote his full time efforts this summer to developing the best business plan for the future. John’s qualifications for this assignment are ideal. He has a strong background in consumer marketing and digital content and has stature in the publishing industry, as well as with digital software and hardware companies. It is likely we will be seeking partners and allies in our quest to ‘put the genie back into the bottle’.

As many of you know, we are currently pursuing four related initiatives:

1.    Evolving our current website businesses by identifying and developing consumer revenue streams.

2.    Accelerating the creation of applications for smartphone platforms.

3.    Developing new products and business models for portable digital readers.

4.    Exploring partnerships with other publishers to develop the optimal retail store for our digital products.

John will need the support of many, including Consumer Marketing, Legal, Strategy and Business Development, and the Time Inc. titles. Please pitch in with all your resources available when he calls.

During this assignment, similar to the role I’m playing at the Style and Entertainment Group, I will assume responsibility for the News Business Unit.

A.M.

Time Warner’s AOL can spin positive news out of the miserable results it offered up today: Our wounds are self-inflicted, and we can heal them.

But Ann Moore, who runs Time Warner’s Time Inc. publishing business, will have a tougher time selling that story to investors. Her magazine company performed as badly as the rest of the industry did in the last quarter.

Time Inc. saw ad revenue drop 30 percent in the first three months of 2009, which corresponds roughly to the 26 percent drop in ad pages the overall magazine business recorded during the same time.

That drop is much worse than industry executives had braced for last fall when nearly every publishing company, Time Inc. included, made a round of layoffs. And as this quarter’s miserable numbers trickled in, publishers from Forbes to Condé Nast have made a second round of cuts to adjust to the new reality.

Time Inc. hasn’t done so, or at least not in a significant manner. But it may have to. One suggestion, offered to me by a Time Warner (TWX) executive yesterday: “Time has way too many magazines. They should fix that.”

For the record, Time Inc. has “more than 115 titles” world-wide.

Time Inc. boss Ann Moore made her case for the survival of magazines, and in a broader sense, traditional media: If they don’t make it, who’s going to do the work to get hard-to-find information?

If she’d just waited a few weeks, she could have saved herself some trouble and simply handed everyone she met a copy of today’s New York Observer, which has a great story about the story behind the Alex Rodriguez/steroids story that her own Sports Illustrated broke on Saturday.

Per the Observer’s John Koblin, here’s some of what SI reporter Selena Roberts (pictured above) went through to get the story:

• Roberts started on the story at least four months ago, when she was assigned a general profile of the Yankees superstar.
• By January, Roberts and colleague David Epstein were confirming rumors that Rodriguez’s name had surfaced in a 2003 drug test. They eventually cobbled together four different sources to confirm their story.
• Last week, Roberts flew from New York to Miami to confront Rodriguez directly. After an encounter with a security guard and the Miami police, she drove by his house, then tracked him down at a local gym.
• After getting a “no comment” from the player, she conferred with her editors, and the SI team then spent another 48 hours dotting i’s and crossing t’s before publishing.

It’s a neat tale, and one the folks at Time Warner (TWX) should be proud of. And it’s a good counterpoint to pundits who assure us that one day soon in the brave new world, old media gatekeepers like SI will be replaced by the collective wisdom of the Web. Because the last time I checked, crowd-sourcing didn’t pay for months of reporting, flights to Miami, a team of lawyers, etc.

Could a dogged individual, working without a net, have gotten this story? Theoretically. And some bloggers working primarily with crowd-sourced tips have done some great work, too–see the great work that  Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo did on the Justice Department/Attorney General scandal last year. And, just to knock down that straw man–big media, armed with all sorts of resources, does get all sorts of stuff wrong, as the New York Times has admitted on a couple of occasions now.

But look at how much work Roberts and SI had to invest in tracking down what in the end isn’t a story that’s truly important, in a State-of-the-Union sense of the word. Now think about how much work it takes to suss out answers to much less sexy but more crucial questions, about, say, the way our government works.

I still don’t think that Moore’s argument–that these publications will survive because we need them to–will pan out. And I worry that only a small slice of us will get good info about important stuff. But when that day comes, I hope someone will have created a free Web archive of reporting like Roberts’s story, so that the rest of us can get a sense of what we’re missing.

Other key data points from Time Warner’s (TWX) Q4 report card:

Overall revenue at AOL dropped 23 percent (the remainder of the decrease stems from AOL’s evaporating but still substantial dial-up business). But operating income, before accounting for a gigantic write-off the company had preannounced, actually increased six percent. So if new sales boss Greg Coleman, last seen at Yahoo (YHOO), can make even modest progress in the next couple months, AOL will be able to limp along for a bit longer.

But not before more overhauls: Time Warner announced that it has earmarked another $250 million for restructuring charges at AOL and its Warner Bros. movie studios in 2009.

Time Inc.’s ad revenues dropped 20 percent, and adjusted operating income dropped 70 percent. But you can’t pin all of that on Ann Moore and company: Time had to take a $57 million charge on rent that Lehman Bros. (R.I.P.) won’t be paying to lease space at the company’s midtown office.

TIme Warner’s network TV business–HBO and Turner Broadcasting–did just fine. Gangbusters, really, by today’s standards: Revenues were up nine percent, including a seven percent bump in ad revenues.

Want to see the numbers for yourself? Click the table below to enlarge, or read the full release:

Here’s an excerpt from the acceptance speech she delivered at the Magazine Publishers of America luncheon. I’m reprinting it here (with her staff’s help) because I think it’s a nice summation of why many of us are dismayed to see what’s happening to traditional media.

But I also think Moore’s argument–that quality magazines/newspapers/journalism will survive because society needs them to–doesn’t hold up.

The more I chew on this stuff, the more I fear that we’re headed for a bifurcated world: People with a lot of resources will get access to high-quality information. Everyone else will get free stuff that has little value. More on that later, and often.

First, I’m grateful in these crazy times that our readers have not abandoned us. On the contrary, readership of magazines is up. And at Time inc our circulation and net profit was up in 2008.

Consumers are still reading…. and buying…. It’s true — we had to go back on press four times for Time’s person of the year Obama issue. Let’s not forget 85 percent of adults in this country still read magazines

And I believe more than ever, especially during times like these, people will turn to trusted content and trusted brands. Am I the only person to notice that even “60 Minutes” has returned to the top ten tv shows?

Second, I’m grateful that print advertising is still very effective. The best [return on investment] is a media mix. So our core businesses—-print magazines–remain very effective vehicles for advertising messages in building brand awareness and purchase intent. That’ s a fact.

Third, I’m grateful that the basic need for fact-based information will not go away. Good editors will be needed more–not less– in an age of too much information. The public will increasingly understand the need for fact-based reporting…because sketchy information can lead to trouble.

The fastest way to turn a college classroom on the subject is to remind them of the price they paid for the rumor of weapons of mass destruction. We have somehow failed to teach the millenials that trustworthy information is essential for the free markets to thrive…

This is not a new problem for society, by the way. Mark Twain complained, ‘a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ‘ Wouldn’t Twain be amazed that it can now travel almost at the speed of light?

Real reporting takes expertise, wisdom and judgement. That’s why i still believe great news brands will be standing…like those in the Time and Life building — when the economic recovery comes.

And finally I’m also grateful that we’re not in the newspaper business…although i’m rooting hard for them. A world without newspaper journalism is not a better world.

I believe our children will eventually understand that all content can’t be free.Someone has to pay for a Baghdad bureau in the red zone. For investigative reporting. For fact checking. A world without journalism is not a better world.

Thanks to the MediaMemo readers who’ve been sending in tips, leads and generally useful information about what’s happening at Time Inc., the magazine arm of Time Warner (TWX). Thanks to you, I can report that:

• “About 8-10 people” were let go yesterday from InStyle’s editorial group.
• Sara Jacobs, VP of Web Application Delivery, has been let go, a move one reader surmises is a “strategy…to gut the Internet unit and let the old magazine IT guys run the show.”

I also want to pass along the thoughts of a 20+ year Time Inc. veteran who says I’m a fool for surmising that CEO Ann Moore has cut down on reorg/layoff memos because of strategic concerns: “The real reason she doesn’t want to put any more of this stuff in writing is that when the rank & file read this stuff it makes us ill. The memos are of necessity tortourously long and nonsensical.”

Here’s the longer take from the Time Inc. vet, who, for obvious reasons, has asked to remain anonymous:

I could throw a rock from my office and hit 10 people with more good ideas on how to take Time Inc. into the digital age than Ann. The ‘reorg’ is classic Moore management. The problem was a too high cost structure, but it would be too embarrassing to her to just say that, so the whole thing has to be cloaked as a ‘strategic realignment of assets.’ The new structure is so complicated, with so many ‘dotted-line’ reporting structures that the new group publishers have no clue how things will work. Even more unbelievably, the new structure is based on the structure under which Fortune and Money have been operating for the past 2-3 years. It is an objective, easily quantified fact that that structure has been a failure (for starts, Chris Poleway, the executive who implemented it was fired). So naturally, we’re rolling it out to the rest of the company.”

Anyone else want to chime in? If you want to use your real name, go ahead and leave a comment below. If you’re (understandably) shy, go ahead and email me: I keep all correspondence anonymous: peter@allthingsd.com.

The Time Warner (TWX) publishing unit let more than 30 people go from its Essence and Entertainment Weekly titles yesterday. The NY Observer and Gawker have details; the NY Post’s Keith Kelly reports that Matt Turck and Charles Kammerer, publishers of This Old House and Golf Magazine, respectively, are also out.

That brings the total body count (announced firings + requested resignations) to about 250, which means that CEO Ann Moore still has a long way to go before she gets to her rough target of 600 job cuts this year. Which means the next few weeks will continue to be unpleasant.

UPDATE: Add another 8-10 from In Style.

One thing Time Inc. staffers won’t be seeing during that time: More memos announcing details of the reorg. Executives at the company seem to have concluded that internal communications that have been showing up at this Web site and others haven’t helped employee morale. That seems sensible. But it also means that employees have even less information about their fate than before.

Meanwhile, I’m still collecting tips. As always, I keep all correspondence anonymous: peter@allthingsd.com.

After asking about 100 editorial employees to give up their jobs today, Time Inc. announced a round of involuntary job cuts: Time Warner’s (TWX) magazine publisher said it is firing 92 people in an overhaul of its consumer marketing and sales group.

Time Inc. hasn’t ever formally announced the number of cuts it intends to make this fall, but company officials say the New York Times’ report that pegged the number at 600 to be a reasonable estimate. By that count, there are another 400 or so positions that will disappear in the coming weeks.

Below, the reorg memo from consumer marketing and sales EVP Brian Wolfe, who reports directly to Time Inc CEO Ann Moore (pictured) and oversees a team that sells across all of the company’s titles.

TO: Time Inc. Consumer Marketing and Sales
FROM: Brian Wolfe
RE: Reorganization

I’d like to provide further detail regarding our new Consumer Marketing & Sales organization.

These changes were driven both by the current economic landscape, as well as the opportunity to be more focused on activities that drive our bottom line.

Each of our magazine and digital properties will be assigned to a brand leader, who will set strategic direction for our consumer activities and manage the P&L for their respective magazines. Their focus will include net paid and rate base planning, research, relationships with edit and ad sales, audience development, branding, and newsstand. Titles that already have substantial partnership volume will maintain partnership sales/operations teams; the balance of partnership activities will be managed by Synapse. Each brand leader (VP) will manage a ‘group’ of magazines, which align with the 3 different business units that Ann Moore detailed in her memo 2 weeks ago. Consumer Marketing activities for all U.S. Time Inc. magazines will now be managed in New York.

VP’s of each of the business units are detailed below for the print publications and related websites:

· Holley Cavanna, Vice President, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, Essence
· Steve Crowe, Vice President, Southern Living, Coastal Living, Southern Accents
· Carrie Goldin, Vice President, Real Simple, All You, This Old House
· Matthew Hoffmeyer, Vice President, Fortune, Money, Fortune Small Business
· Holley Klingel, Vice President, Sunset
· Jennifer Ogden-Reese, Vice President, People, People en Espanol, Stylewatch
· Jose Perez, Vice President, Cooking Light, Health, Cottage Living
· John Reese, Vice President, Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Golf
· Nate Simmons, Vice President, TIME, TIME Canada, Time For Kids

As you know, consumer marketing has played a key role in the past 2 years in helping to drive growth in our digital audiences. The role of consumer marketing in supporting Time Inc.’s digital growth will only increase in the future. Reflecting that goal, each business unit will be supported by an audience development expert who will report directly into their business unit VP. Reporting on our magazines digital activities has also become a key skill in consumer marketing. We will continue to provide this critical function for our websites by forming a digital reporting team, which will report to Holley Cavanna. In addition, Michael Dub’s audience development and analytics team, which was formerly part of TII, will now be part of consumer marketing and will also report to Holley Cavanna.  With this entire digital team in place, I feel very confident about our ability to apply our skills and expertise to this critical piece of Time Inc.’s future growth.

Going forward, all of our marketing efforts will be centralized in a team led by Sarah Jack, Vice President, Marketing. Sarah’s team will manage the new business and retention activities for all of our magazines. There will be a new business and retention director reporting to Sarah and each business unit will have a new business and retention manager and associate to support their marketing activities. This group represents the best marketers in our division and will enable us to further develop and leverage expertise in these areas. I expect this team to develop a balanced testing agenda, share best practices and results, and be singularly focused on bringing the best marketing possible to our brands. Our multi-title marketing efforts, which have continually resulted in volume growth at Time Direct Ventures (TDV) in recent years, will be managed by a team which will now report in to Sarah. In addition, an agency department and our List Rental team, led by Christine Slusarek, will also report to Sarah.

Jeff Blatt will continue in his role as TDV President and will manage a group that will focus on continuing to grow our fundraising and scouting volume. In addition, our Maghound team, led by Dave Ventresca, will continue to report to Jeff.

Sarah Jack, the brand VPs, Jeff, in his role as TDV President and Synapse CEO, Time Warner Retail (TWR) CEO & President Rich Jacobsen, and QSP CEO & President Kerry Hatch will all report to me.

As I mentioned last week, Howard Rosen has joined our team as SVP, Group General Manager, reporting to Howard Averill, Time Inc. CFO.  Reporting to Howard will be:

· Sean McDermott, Vice President, Finance.  Sean will continue to be responsible for the roll-up of our consumer marketing financials and will also manage a centralized group of planners, who will be assigned to individual business units.  In addition, Sean will manage the consumer marketing business office.

· John Tighe, Vice President, Promotions, Production & Operations.
· Scott Breininger, Vice President, Marketing Operations, which includes Online Operations, Payment, Database Marketing Services, Telemedia and Fulfillment.
· Bill Miller, Executive Director, Legal

Also reporting to Howard will be the CFOs of TWR, Synapse and QSP as well as our customer service and fulfillment operations in the United States and abroad, led respectively by Tim Adams and Sue Knights.

Howard’s groups will now support activities for all of Time Inc.’s U.S. magazines. These departments have historically been a critical part of our competitive advantage, and their continued expertise and excellent work will remain key components to our future growth.

The changes we announced today represent a significant departure from the way we currently operate. Critical to our future success will be the following principles:

We will be a marketing and operations division. We will meet our financial and compliance objectives, but will spend far less time on financial reporting and variance analysis. Ownership and reporting of the P&L will reside solely within our division. We will bring extreme focus to marketing and innovation and to the execution of our marketing plans. By doing so, we will continually improve our P&L.

We will have relentless focus on activities and levers that drive the business. We;ll have to prioritize and make difficult decisions on how we spend our time and allocate our resources. We need to be diligent about setting goals and not be distracted by requests or activities that are not in direct support of these goals.

We will need even greater emphasis on teamwork and collaboration. We are already good at sharing information and leveraging best practices. Success depends on our ability to be comfortable working well within and across functions and teams. We will also need to be great partners with the management teams of the 3 new Business Units that have been formed at Time Inc.

For our staff, this structure balances the ability to work on our brands, while continuing to improve skills and grow expertise in each of your functional areas.

We have a lot to be proud of. We work for a very profitable company, with incredible brands and talented, smart people. Our division makes a significant contribution to Time Inc.’s bottom line. Our circulation profits are higher this year, when most other print publishers are in decline. And we have continued to launch new products and innovate despite a tough economic environment.

As we move forward in this new organization, we do so without many talented colleagues and friends in New York, Birmingham and Menlo Park. These decisions are never easy, nor are they taken lightly. Please join me in thanking them for their contributions to consumer marketing and Time Inc. and in wishing them well as they move on to the next chapter in their careers.

I have tremendous confidence in this new structure, our people, and our ability and determination to meet our goals. I look forward to working with each of you to successfully grow our business.

Brian”

That will change beginning next week, says Time Inc. spokeswoman Dawn Bridges. She says CEO Ann Moore (right) and her lieutenants will unveil the “size, staffing and structure of each of the business units” beginning “early next week.”

Unfortunately, that still doesn’t mean that Time Inc. workers will all learn their fate at the same time. A person familiar with the plans tells me the re-org could take a couple weeks to roll out.

Also fuzzy: The number of people who are going to get cut. The 600 number The New York Times reported last month is a ballpark estimate, I’m told. Time is telling individual unit managers to reduce overall payroll, but they’ll have autonomy to make the cuts themselves.

A reasonable but completely unverified hunch: People who work at SI.com, People.com and CNNMoney.com may be in better shape than their colleagues. Those three sites were singled out as top performers during Time Warner’s earnings release this morning, in which the company said the magazine publisher’s overall revenues had dropped seven percent and that ad sales had declined eight percent in the last quarter.

Know more? Let me know: peter@allthingsd.com.

Apologies to Time Inc. employees waiting to learn their fate: There’s no new information to offer you here.

But thanks to a source familiar with Time Inc. boss Ann Moore’s meeting today with the senior staff at her “Style and Entertainment” Group, we can give you a very good sense of what she’s telling employees at Time Warner’s (TWX) magazine unit.

In short, it’s a pep talk version–sort of–of the reorg memo she distributed last week: Suck it up, buckle down and get to work. We’re restructuring the company because the economy stinks, but we’re still a magazine company, and don’t lose sight of that.

And while we doubt that any of Ann’s employees would take her words lightly, the folks at the Style group need to pay even closer attention–following the reorg, she now oversees the unit directly.

Again, this is not a verbatim transcript of Moore’s remarks. If anyone wants to offer more details, correct errors, etc, please contact me: peter@allthingsd.com.

Some insiders don’t see the need for change. They look outside, but outsiders don’t know how to succeed. We need to be insider/outsiders. The rules have changed, and we need to find who within our org can work as a team. Is this re-org forever? We hope not. It’s a two-year plan. Employees need to act like an equity company that bought Time Inc.

Lastly, Moore added, we will all get through this.

Time Inc. employees have a general idea of the magazine publishing giant’s revamped org chart.

But they still don’t know who’s staying and who’s actually going as the company, a unit of Time Warner (TWX), prepares to can some 600 workers.

That may change after this morning. CEO Ann Moore is hosting an 11 a.m. EST conference call with the troops that a tipster tells MediaMemo is supposed to explain the changes–including the layoffs–”in detail.”

UPDATE: Our original tipster was incorrect: This meeting only concerned Time Inc.’s newly formed “Style And Entertainment” group. That’s People, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle and Essence. We’re also told Ann griped about inaccurate bloggers. Ouch!. Here’s a transcript of her remarks.

Thanks to those of you who have passed along tips and information. If you want to contribute yourself, drop me a line: peter@allthingsd.com.

One of note for MediaMemo readers: The departure of Ned Desmond, a longtime Time Inc. vet who was most recent title was President of Time Inc. Interactive. Ned’s bio is here; nice-to-know-you memo from Ann Moore follows:

To:        Time Inc. Employees

A.M.                 J.S.