The Paper

Last month this reporter interviewed Amanda Lorber, one of the stars of MTV's docu-series The Paper. At the time, Ms. Lorber, a high school newspaper editor, was savvy enough not to reveal where she would be attending college in the fall. "I don't think I should tell you [where] yet because that's a plotline," she said, laughing. "I will be studying journalism, though."

Finally, her silence has been broken! Ms. Lorber will be attending New York University in the fall according to NYU's Washington Square News. (This fact had already emerged via a commenter on Jezebel last week.) Ms. Lorber tells the WSN's Sergio Hernandez, "I'm ready [for NYU]... I'm a little nervous now because the show has come out, and I kind of don't want to be recognized. I want to have a fresh start, and I want to be kind of a normal student, not a girl that was on an MTV reality show."  read more »

MONDAY

There should be something wrong when high-schoolers in Florida start to sound like their geriatric counterparts in Boca Raton. But when it's the stars of MTV’s The Paper [10:30 p.m.], it’s downright heartwarming. Though society seems to be "heading to the Internet and to virtual whatnot," 17-year-old Amanda Lorber, an editor on The Circuit, the student-run newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. says she and her mates "really wanna keep print alive.” Aw, we feel you sister! Perhaps the staff of The Circuit will be the perfect compliment to that other popular MTV reality series starring misguided teenagers. The Observer’s Matt Haber summed it up quite nicely in a profile of the show and its cast:  read more »

Ask anyone in the business: These are dark times for the newspaper industry. Dwindling readership and shrinking profits; journalists quaking in their cubicles, wondering if their jobs will exist when the next quarter’s profits are announced. Readers who once looked to the morning paper (not to mention the dimly remembered but extinct evening editions) are distracted by other media that feed them entertainment in news drag.

“I don’t really like the trend of the media right now,” said Cassia Laham, a Florida-based editor. “I feel like we’re becoming too tangled in things unimportant. Like spending four weeks on Anna Nicole Smith or any petty news when there are bigger things happening.”

Her colleague Amanda Lorber worries about the future of their industry as well. “We’re all heading to the Internet and to virtual whatnot. … We really wanna keep print alive.”  read more »