With the media in freefall, newspapers are fighting to survive and journalism schools are struggling to stay relevant. The Anniston Star newspaper and the University of Alabama have found a partnership that could help both. Using a grant from the Knight Foundation, the Anniston Star has started accepting master’s students for a community journalism program to pitch and report stories and supplement the newspaper’s editorial coverage.

The move was met with some resistance from the paper’s editorial staff. Troy Turner, who was the executive editor of the Star before the program began, told the American Journalism Review, “They wanted a training model like a Navy hospital ship. But we worked like a battleship, with all guns blazing. We wanted to continue doing the solid journalism that the Anniston Star had long been known for doing.” Now that the program has started, however, Turner admits that the it’s having some success.

Other journalism schools haven’t had as easy of a time adjusting. When the New York Times partnered with the City University of New York for their own community journalism project, “The Local,” New York Magazine reports that the move was seen as a slight to the University of Columbia venerable journalism school.

Since then Columbia has increased its efforts to stay current. According to New York Magazine, the school will soon offer “a revamped, digitally focused curriculum designed to make all students as capable of creating an interactive graphic as they are of pounding out 600 words on a community-board meeting.” But just as many old-school journalists don’t want to dive into blogging, professors at Columbia are less than enthusiastic about going digital. Ari Goldman, a 16-year professor of Columbia’s Reporting and Writing 1 (RW1) class, is quoted as saying “fuck new media,” describing the move to digital as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”

Image by Bluemarine, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Source: American Journalism Review, New York Magazine 

The American Society of Magazine Editors has announced the finalists for its third annual “Best Covers” competition. The covers are indeed gorgeous, but the judging smacks of bias. Even though the organization’s website says that entries are considered “based on excellence in design/creativity, not on circulation figures,” the nominees are almost exclusively high-circulation and fairly New York-heavy. (The New Yorker is nominated four times, New York magazine six.) It prompts the question: Can they really call it a “Best of” competition when only a small slice of what’s out there is represented? Or are high-profile magazines the only ones with the artistic talent that makes the grade? The winners of the eight categories will be announced Monday, October 6.

Thanks, Quipsologies.

Drew Burrows was tired of coming home alone to an empty bed. So the young, single, New York University student created a virtual companion to keep him company: a thin, quiet brunette who exists solely for the purpose of curling up next to people while they sleep. The New York Magazine blog reports that Burrows invented a video projection designed for a bed that responds to people as they sleep. If a person curls up on his or her side, the projection will snuggle up close and spoon. Lay back and the projection will stretch out, but still keep close enough to almost feel. When asked how long he’d been single, the inventor replied, “[l]ong enough to come up with this idea.” 

You can watch a video of the projection from Burrows’ website below: 

Sex trafficking has been in the news recently, with in-depth investigations and editorials decrying this form of modern-day slavery. But at the same time, classified ads placed by traffickers appear in many publications, reports the Fall issue of Ms. (article not available online). And the services they’re advertising—ostensibly “Asian fun,” “Latin pleasures,” or “relaxing body work”—are often illegal.

As part of its campaign against sex trafficking, the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW-NYC) is asking the city’s publications to sign an anti-trafficking pledge stating that they won’t accept ads from sources that seem likely to be trading in illegal sex. The organization’s suggested screening tactics include asking potential advertisers for a valid massage license—because many traffickers disguise their ads as massage services—and checking ad copy for references to a woman’s ethnicity, which is often a sign of trafficking.

Such efforts seem relatively unburdensome—but is it a newspaper or magazine’s responsibility to screen its ads for illegal activities, however abhorrent they may be?

Fifteen of the city’s publications, including New York magazine and the New York Press, seem to think so. Tom Allon, the president and CEO of Manhattan Media, which publishes the New York Press, told Ms. that “providing advertising space for prostitution undercuts our mission as newspaper publishers and as reporters and journalists.”

On the other hand, the Village Voice, which NOW-NYC estimates makes about $80,000 per month from its “adult” ads, hasn’t signed the pledge. And before New York magazine signed in November, a spokesperson told Ms. that when it came to adult ads, “[I]t’s a First Amendment issue. We can’t make decisions about our advertisers’ rights based on hunches.”

I see both sides of the argument, but ultimately, it seems unlikely that a crackdown on sex ads will make a significant dent in trafficking. These ads already flourish online at sites like Craigslist, and would probably have an even greater online presence if pushed out of magazines and newspapers.

NOW-NYC is promoting a worthwhile cause, but if laws and law enforcement were more effective in preventing and eliminating sex trafficking, this wouldn’t be an issue to begin with. There is, however, good news on that front—in June, the state of New York passed a comprehensive anti-trafficking law.

—Sarah Pumroy