Team Party Crash: New York Review of Magazines
Victor S. Navasky is the publisher and editorial director of The Nation, as well as the director of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism's Delacorte Center. He enjoys kite-surfing and "just having fun."
With spring comes the birds, the bees, and a whole lotta unemployment for the latest batch of j-school graduates. Hence The New York Review of Magazines, a yearly publication held in such high regard that its writers are often hired right out of graduate school. Because NYRM is published by Columbia Journalism School and Noelle Hancock was once rejected by Columbia Journalism School, we decided to send Noelle and photographer Eliot Shepard to the mag's launch party and ruin their future guest-lecturing opportunities. After the jump, mildly offensive captions, bad tsunami puns, and the people who put the "free" in freelancer.
"Hey Baby, wanna see my inverted pyramid?"
So here I am at the launch party for Columbia J-School's magazine covering magazines. "For Magazine Junkies & Recreational Users" is the publication's mantra, and in between freebasing The New York Times and picking the seeds and stems out of Harper's, the class of 2005 has written about New York magazine's anonymous sources, male sex columnists at women's glossies, and why Teen Vogue doesn't go full frontal. Students interview real editors and hit them up for jobs ask them hard-hitting questions to uncover the truth behind magazines (that being: all that shit s made up). The people below forewent lucrative careers in law, investment banking, and professional jai-alai in order to preserve our Democracy. This decision, sources reveal, was very unsmart.
Gives good hed, but sucks at deks.
A Columbia student puts on his beer goggles.
Nichole Marks' piece, "Tasini's Trials," was about Jonathan Tasini, the man behind an $18-million-dollar class action lawsuit on behalf of freelance writers whose articles were being reprinted in electronic form without permission or compensation. The former head of the National Writers Union said it wasn t easy to rally freelancers (the Trenchcoat Mafia of the journalism world) because they typically don t play well with others.
Most freelancers work in their pajamas or shorts or bathrobes or even without clothes on, which makes if particularly difficult to gather them together to form an organization. Also, they usually don t want to work as a group, so you re really going against the grain. They tend to be antisocial by nature. Guilty as charged.
While it thoroughly explored the intricacies of the trial, the article failed to cover the most crucial aspect of freelancing, which is getting your writer friends drunk and asking them their Nexis passwords.
At Thanksgiving, it's getting to make turkey-hand drawings that Jonathan Tasini is most thankful for.
With a face like this, Nichole Marks won't last long in print. Soon the evil tentacle of Access Hollywood and Nancy O'Dell will come and claim her.
Nichole sympathizes with those for whom "health benefits" means Neosporin and Band-Aids. "Huge corporations have freelancers lined up around the block wanting to write for them, so writers get the bottom of the barrel in terms of pay and benefits," she said. "So I do believe that there s an important need for unionizing writers, but other than that I don t really have an opinion on the subject. You re gonna be fine in this business, girlfriend.
"I'm making more money than these fools ever will!" [cackles]
References, begging, and groveling available upon request.
We can't tell you what's going on below this man's waist. But we can tell you what we're having for lunch: Tuna — mmmmm!
According to an article by Candace Jackson, 15-25% of all magazines pass through Wal-Mart shelves, meaning that the company s practice of banning certain titles from its stores can make or break a publication. We asked the intrepid writer about the criteria Wal-Mart uses to edit its magazine shelves. Well, edit is a strong word, but Wal-Mart will definitely review your magazine and if they have any objections to the content, they ll advise you to change it or take the f-word out, and if you don t comply they can just yank it. Sounds like an editor to me. Sassy is one example of a magazine that may have been too racy for the company. Some people think that the reason Sassy didn t make it is because of their problems with Wal-Mart. And yet, like nuclear cockroaches, Joey, and Iggy Pop, Jane magazine somehow manages to survive. You can't touch Pratt, Wal-Mart or not.
The "glass is entirely empty" kind of guy.
"Look at my striped shirt! I pour Red Bull on my cereal! Anyone up for some Golden Tee??!!"
One of the articles is titled "Paradise Lost: How Asian tourism magazines survived in the wake of the tsunami." Wake of the tsunami? Next stop on the Career Express: New York Post Headline-Writing Department!
Cousin It's second cousin, Cousin At.
A typical freelancer's lunch.
What it feels like to be Gisele Bundchen.
As Jessica stated, years ago I was rejected from the J-School (shit ain't right, I know). Because I was low on material that week, I decided to dedicate my college newspaper column to dissecting my rejection letter line by line. To close this party crash, I will now excerpt that column because, once again, I find myself low on material. (I've mined everything I could out of the NYRM thing. Truly.) My bitter rantings below:
"We felt you needed a year or so more of journalism experience before tackling our rigorous program—" Huh? One needs more EXPERIENCE in journalism to be accepted to journalism SCHOOL? That's right, schools across the country, in an effort to make their jobs as easy as possible, will only be accepting qualified professionals from now on. Sorry, but if I'm actually able to obtain experience in journalism after graduation, I probably won't quit my job to attend journalism school. But why don't you send Ted Kennedy to bartending school in the meantime.
The red-headed stepchild of his stepfather.
It's (Judith) Miller time!
"Many applicants not admitted to the Journalism School nonetheless make substantial contributions to journalism..." If they actually think I'm stupid enough not to know this, no wonder they denied me admission. It's a good thing they put in that part about the world not being flat, or else I would have tried to jump off it after reading this statement.
"Thank you for your interest in Columbia." Why, you're welcome. Did I also mention my interest in firearms?
