Zine375

• Sender: owner-newjour@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

Subject: Zine375
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:49:06 -0500 (EST)

Zine375

http://eserver.org/journals/zine375/
(Link inactive 16 August 2006)

http://zine375.eserver.org/
(Link active 16 August 2006)

This online magazine contains the journalism of writers taking Magazine
Writing (76-375) at Carnegie-Mellon University in the fall of 1996. The
stories provide a window into the interests and concerns of CMU English
majors, who are encouraged to write here about the world outside of the
university environment.

As editor, I saw 16 writers file potential stories for the "zine" about
the pros and cons of becoming a vegetarian; the negative side of corporate
funding for the arts; selling collectibles on the Internet; evaluating
coffee shops in Pittsburgh; shmoozing your way to success in Hollywood; 
comprehending the Hip-hop culture in Japan; buying a house as a young,
single woman; beginning a career as a playwright in New York; and eating
happily on a tight budget that allows you to buy only potatoes.

There were dominant themes, and I encouraged one: on-line journalism. 
While CMU students can instruct you how to set up your own web page,
interview an online "underground" cartoonist or the editors of a
successful cyberspace hockey magazine, and can report on the plans of
librarians as they contemplate the universal digitized resources of the
future, there is also an undertow of cynicism about the faddishness of
online information among many of these students. A few are becoming weary,
and wary, travelers in cyberspace. Do we really need Mrs.  Butterworth's
Home Page? Isn't the Internet beginning to fall apart of its own weight?
These young journalists are also classic readers and literary types --
they don't want to lose the sensual luxury of turning magazine pages, or
the sense of "owning" a physical magazine, as opposed to clicking on
digitized words and images that evaporate with another click. Some of the
major debates within professional journalism surface in these students'
arguments. 

During this typical semester, 64 stories were turned in, based on such
workhorse periodical genres as how-to writing, trends, interviews, and
human interest pieces.  Half of these pieces were later given major
rewrites, a normal course requirement. But only some 20 stories finally
show up here, as a result of a decision by the editorial board made up of
three graduate students--Stacy Adams, Matthew Jordan, Cornela King--and
myself. Another board decision was to publish every student. We worked
with each writer to edit their stories for Zine375 on the English Server.
Mark Petruzzini, a former student in the course and a CMU Junior, put the
zine online.