James Franco: "Only the douchebags at Columbia would dare take a picture of me sleeping in class." Andy: "Why is that?" James Franco: "I sleep at NYU all the time and no one bothers me." [Columbia Student Andy Nguyen's Facebook]

Last night we were baffled by a Columbia graduation fuss involving a professor blocking a student's graduation. It turns to be a classic new media/old media debate, on the ethics of content sharing, according to an email from the student.

Today was graduation at the Columbia Journalism School, and the ceremonies were tinged with regret. Not just because the news media is imploding, either: there's a mysterious flap involving a non-graduating student and a professor who supposedly breached "standards of communication."

Oh you fucking hipsters. Talib Kweli—a black dude who white dudes aren't scared of—will be giving a free concert with fruity/dumb Vampire Weekend on Columbia's library steps in one hour. Grab your keffiyah!

In your sun-dappled Wednesday media column: Newspapers crumble like so many sandcastles at high tide, Rupert Murdoch's still rich, Choire has a contest, and J-school is changing. Not enough:

How does James Franco manage to take classes at both NYU and Columbia while penning a book while keeping his acting career going? Evidently only with lots of naps.

SCOOP: Ben Smith has published a long work of college journalism by our new leader Barack Obama! Click through for highlights of this elitist Ivy League anti-war tract, starring Barack quoting Peter Tosh:

Hey Ivy League students, did you think that the walls of the Ivory Tower would shelter you from this global financial crisis? Figured you'd be able to continue pulling in your financial aid and frolicking in your school's brand new buildings full of fancy professors who teach one class per year and spend the rest of the time writing little-read books? Think again! Because it looks like even the mighty Harvard is losing billions in the current market downturn. More billions than you might expect:

Three years ahead of schedule, Columbia J-School has met its goal of raising $100 million, thanks in part to a $20 million donation from John Kluge, a rich man who values Ivy League schools over starving children in Africa. The school plans to increase scholarships, start an "academic center focused on the coverage of race and ethnicity," and also get started on the big "Center for Internet Journalism," which will finally teach young people how to write things online. A worthy use of $100 million if there ever was one. Nick Lemann can afford to buy enough paper for his long memos, with enough cash left over to Make it Rain on Them Hoes, if he so chooses. Meanwhile, less upscale schools are forced to do things like this to raise money: The alumni office at Framingham State University recently sent out a fundraising letter that attempted to be cool and appeal to "Generation X" by using the word "blah" 137 times.

The Post gives newly retired hack Steve Dunleavy a fawning editorial, a news story, a video, and a photo gallery of his going-away party today—as you can see, Dunleavy and Rupert Murdoch still appear to be in better shape than Post editor Col Allan. The paper also gives Dunleavy space for one last column, in which he predictably praises Murdoch, but also pisses on Columbia J-school in the most convoluted way possible:

No plans for 9/11 day yet? Why not enjoy Barack Obama and John McCain at Columbia, one of those Elitist East Coast Ivy League Colleges of The Elite, where they will talk about civic duty for "ServiceNation, an organization that aims to increase public service participation." You know, "public service participation" like "community organizing," which, as we all know, is gay and elitist and not something seriously important like shooting wolves from airplanes. Anyway. We assume Obama will talk on behalf on public service and McCain will become confused and angry and speak against it. [CollegeOTR]

US News & World Report released its annual college rankings today. No need to read; it's the usual suspects in the usual order. "The real news is price. A year at Harvard now costs $36,173 (tuition and fees), while Columbia will set you back $39,326. The cost of a college education is escalating at three to four times the inflation rate." [WSJ/Wealth Report]

Gossip Girl, our bitchiest teen soap about Manhattan rich kids glowing dimly, is currently filming at Columbia University (someone run up there and take pictures!) Which makes sense, cause, you know, it's New Yorky and the show loves to make references to all of the city's hotspots (Veselka! Butter! DUMBOsburg!) But, gasp, the scenes they're filming take place at Yale. How dare they confuse one set of rich kids with inflated senses of intellect and caste-like status with another? Plus the architecture is totes different.

It's the kind of story with all the ingredients for a great movie: a 30-year-old woman from Montana has pleaded guilty to fraud and identity theft, which she undertook in order to attend Columbia University and, says her attorney, "escape a painful past." How intriguing. Since 2001 Esther Elizabeth Reed had juggled 6 different identities, and variously claimed to be a chess champion and in the witness protection program. She got into Columbia with a genuine SAT score of 1400 and by using the identity of a missing woman from North Carolina, whose disappearance investigators "don't think" Reed was connected to. Well, in the film she will be! And she won't face 47 years in jail either, but elude capture by always staying one step ahead of the feds.

Above, Jay Rosen, former NYU journalism department chair and current faculty member, leaves a mean comment on some story at the Columbia Journalism Review. Hah. Very professional, Jay. Let the J-School War Commence! Our money's on Jay and his merry band of new-media rebels. Those CJR kids are too earnest and "concerned." Click to see the comment! [CJR, hat tip Hunter]

Oh noes! Someone at the Spectator, Columbia University's student paper, wrote a negative review of literary mag n+1 editor Keith Gessen's novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men. Now another Columbia kid, Mark Krotov, is coming to the rescue! Wait for the disclosure: "I have done a little work for Gessen and his magazine, which has a very low circulation rate." NEG! Is it just us, or is Keith's entire world very incest-y?

This, from the Columbia Spectator, is a truly beautiful correction. Turns out there's no evidence to support the claim that "one Dalai Lama" had sex with hundreds of men even though he knew he had AIDS. The fact that the current Dalai Lama has held the position since 1950 certainly narrows down the candidates there, doesn't it. Beautiful. [Spectator]

A full list of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners follows. A few surprises in there: did we know that Bob Dylan got a Special Citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power"? And that the Editorial Writing award went to... no one?

Good news, New York-based fans of Freaks and Geeks and ridiculously good looking men. James Franco (also of Spiderman) has reportedly decided to get smaht and enrolled himself in the MFA writing program at smallish commuter school Columbia University. A tipster, who sort of bumped into him at the Whitney and then eavesdropped, tells BWOG that the actor will be starting this fall and will also be taking classes at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where he'll presumably write beautiful plays about a young actor realizing he has secret impulses buried inside himself. He may just be doing this to get back some of the "serious actor" cred he let slip away recently (see: Annapolis, Tristan and Isolde and, erm, Fly Boys), but who the hell cares. See you on the 1 train! The full, amusing tip lies after the jump. Plus a bonus.

Any Columbia j-schoolers who dared chat with the scary Bloomberg editor-in-chief last night at the cocktail party last night for Pulitzer Prize jurors? Here's your shot at blog fame. Email me.