Budding Yale publications start the presses

By Robby O'Connor

My freshman year at Yale, a friend of mine and I wanted to start our own magazine. We perceived an utter lack of coolness on campus and thought that two super-dudes like ourselves could remedy the situation with our awesome powers of writing reviews of cryptic bands and obscure films that no more than four people had ever heard of. How did it happen that a publication such as ours never came to be? The Bible calls it "sloth" and my mom calls it "laziness." I prefer to think that we "dreamed too big." In the end, though, I truly believe that it was all for the best, as we both went on to much loftier pursuits; I became a peon writer for the Herald and he the editor-in-chief.

But some never abandon their silly little dreams of starting their own publication and becoming great publishing moguls—the next Rupert Murdochs or Larry Flynts of Yale. These poor souls condemn themselves to long, sleepless nights of self-doubt and worrying whether, if by the grace of God and Yale bureaucracy, they will ever turn their ethereal dreams into printed matter.

Journal fever

Alexander Jhin, JE '01, the founding editor of the Yale Journal of Sex, which launched its first issue last spring, learned that the first obstacle a fledgling publication must overcome is its own sense of self-doubt. "One of the toughest parts was getting over the fear that no one else is interested in the topic. Our staff is marvelous, though, and has begun to project a lot of its own energy into the journal, so I think I've finally gotten over that. People are genuinely interested," he says.

For Jhin, fears of rejection were superceded by what he saw as a need for his publication on campus. "Our society is very tight-lipped about sex, which leads to the suppression of scientific and psychological knowledge. This has a real negative effect on our society. Our goal is to promote open, informed discussion about sex and sexuality, so that we may have healthy, well-informed, psychologically-comfortable understandings about sexuality."

Whereas Jhin saw a need for his publication on campus, others pursue the creation of their own magazine simply out of their passion to do so. Matt Fogel, ES '02, and Prue Peiffer, JE '02, the editors-in-chief of Line-Up magazine, the newest and possibly only art/literature/humor periodical on campus (Line-Up also debuted last spring), appropriately take their publication's role on campus and in society a little less seriously. "Can you imagine a fusion of a literary magazine, newsmagazine, humor magazine, and scientific journal? Neither could we. But we felt like starting a magazine anyway," quips Fogel. With regard to Line-Up's place on the Yale campus, Peiffer explains, "Our magazine fills the `lonely niche' in all of our lives."

Scott Peterman, JE '02, who plans to start the Maxim-esque men's magazine Eli next semester when his tenure as co-editor of the JE newsletter Temptations ends, explains, "Eli's niche is pretty obvious, I think...MEN! We plan on running humorous reviews on the things we love the most: beer, football, video games, movies, and women. Our goal is to entertain people, while at the same time becoming ridiculously popular and sexually attractive."

Publishing puppies v. the big dog

Whatever the reason for their conception—be it education or shameless self-interest—start-up publications have their work cut out for them. Helen Liu, MC '02, editor-in-chief of the online photo journal Exposure, speaks of the difficulties of being the new kid on the block, enrolled in school with the oldest college daily. "The hardest part is getting people interested and getting people to stay. People are hesitant to make commitments because of the fledgling status of a start-up publication. This also affects our getting funding and public exposure. Local shops wouldn't advertise with us because we had no reputation. It's hard to get the word out there that you exist."

It would seem that the obvious answer to these woes would be funding from the University; but, on top of having to go through the difficult and competitive process of obtaining money, publications at Yale face an issue that other student organizations don't have to deal with. Jhin laid the situation bare: "Funding—what a nightmare. Does Yale cover everything? The question [that publications face is]: does Yale cover anything? For publications, the UOFC [Undergraduate Organization Funding Committee] will cover up to $550 worth of expenditures, except—here's the big except—the cost of publication...So we can buy $550 worth of pizza for staff meetings, but we can't get a single cent from Yale for the most important cost, publishing. Evidently, it's a First Amendment issue. If Yale chooses not to pay publishing costs for some publications, then they are censoring speech. Their solution is to not fund any publications at all."

Mukul Bahkshi, JE '02, UOFC chair, confirmed that constitutional issues influence funding. "Given the conflict between the administration's strong support of the First Amendment and the financial needs of new publications," Bahkshi said, "I think that no changes could conceivably be made at this point. We will continue to fund publicity and food to attract potential staff members, and auxillary office supplies, but financial support from outside Yale will still be requisite for any new publication that wants to fully establish itself."

Students can often turn to their Residential Colleges for help, applying directly to the Master's Office for subsidization, as Line-Up has and Eli hopes to do. The Sudler Fund, which students apply for through their residential colleges and traditionally has supported student theater and other artistic endeavors, only this fall began including student publications as among those eligible for funding. Though these resources can be helpful, receiving money from them is also quite problematic. Jhin laments, "The Masters Offices are afraid of funding the Journal, for fear that it will offend people. Other sources of funding are scarce and difficult to deal with when you're writing for `The Journal Of Sex.' Even getting ads is difficult for this reason. Nu Haven Book and Video can only buy so many."

Line-Up's Fogel and Peiffer further expound on the difficulty of the situation. "Finally, this year Sudler began to give money to `start-up publications,'" Fogel says. "But these publications have to show that they directly benefit the college which the editors are in, and since most colleges already have their own literary magazine, it's still difficult for start-ups to get money." Peiffer voiced an additional complaint: "This being our second issue, we are no longer a `start-up publication,' in the eyes of the Sudler Fund. Any magazine in its first two years should be considered a `start-up publication' because that's how long it takes to put a magazine on its economic feet."

In addition, many student publishers resent what they see as specious logic creating a discrepancy. "It's obscene," vents Fogel, "because Sudler will give money to any theater or performance art project, even though there are about 30 times more performances a semester than there are magazines. In the past, [they] didn't fund publications at all, believing there was a glut of them on campus. Why would a school with an endowment that could publish Newsweek for a few years refuse to fund magazines on the basis that there is too much student creativity?"

While most start-up publications end up working primarily out-of-pocket, Exposure found another solution. "We tried everywhere," says Liu. "Alumni house, Dean's office, Masters, UOFC, arts department, corporate sponsors, all with no luck and much frustration. It really sucked. So, Exposure, after much frustration, decided to go online, where costs for upkeep are minimal. The only money you need is to maintain a domain name, and that's only if you go off the yale.edu website. Though it was a last resort, it's worked out for the best for a magazine like ours. We can constantly update our content and it's allowed us to expand. We originally had a limited photography staff, but since online space is unlimited, we did away with that. Another perk is that we don't have to pollute our publication with advertisements."

Press is more

In addition to constantly butting heads with the bureaucratic forces that be, a start-up editor can look forward to countless nights of production that often bleed into the early a.m., as well as frustrating altercations with flaky writers who never write what (or when) they are supposed to. It all begs the question: why on earth would someone do any of this? Peterman says that the impetus behind starting Eli is that "we really enjoy writing and laying out magazines every Thursday night for Temptations. With Eli we'll be able to work free from the (albeit limited) censorship of Basha [Goddard], the steel-fisted yet kindly-hearted JE matriarch [a.k.a. Senior Administrative Assistant]. In other words, we wanted to use the f-word a lot more." Peiffer agrees and says, "In general, this is what we love to do, so we can't complain."

Graphic by Sarah England.

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