Liberal-Elite Eight: March Media-ness Resumes

Last week we tried to explain higher-education hoop dreams in terms of higher-circulation news teams. Sixty-four squads (65 including Niagara's vanquished play-in foe Gawker) started out on the quest for media supremacy (and our famed dog-hugging-cat trophy), and now only eight remain. Surely, there's a lot of money riding on your bracket, so without further delay, a recap of the last week's action.

MIDWEST REGIONAL

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First-seeded New Yorker plays third-seeded Washington Post for a trip to the Big Dance in Atlanta. Not too much excitement here, except for Katie Couric's defeat at the hands of seventh-seeded Cosmopolitan. End of feminism, natch! But then WaPo took care of Cosmo and the bracket was back to normal. We're gonna go out on a limb and say reigning champs the New Yorker is looking old-fashionedly complacent; take the Post and their post-Walter Reed bump.

WEST REGIONAL

The match-up of the titans we've been all looking for: Paris Hilton versus the New York Times. Take Paris, folks; she really showed us something with that nine-point victory over slow-down snore-fest New York magazine. Meanwhile the Times had to squeak out a three-point decision over fake-trendy school Daily Show.

EAST REGIONAL

The Wall Street Journal faces Vanity Fair after the former survived semi-low-seeded Entertainment Weekly and the latter survived semi-low-seeded Esquire. Vanity Fair needed a semi-miraculous bank shot with 2.5 seconds left to win, so it's not quite the early-nineties Tina Brown/John Thompson powerhouse again quite yet. Hold your nose and go with the Journal.

SOUTH REGIONAL

Snooze!!! Time versus Harper's after all the wrenches that TMZ.com and US Weekly were supposed to throw into the well-laid plans of the powers? Silly. I mean most of the Harper's talent is transfer students, no? Go with Time and their newfound pituitary-case size.