Journalism class rolls out annual magazine

With a broader circulation aimed at state opinion leaders and an eye on Wisconsin, a magazine crafted by a team of journalism students makes its debut Thursday, Dec. 11.

Called Curb, the annual magazine has a spiffed-up look, a new target audience and a circulation that grew from 1,000 to 4,000 thanks to a donation from Waunakee printer Suttle-Straus.

Curb is the product of faculty associate Katy Culver’s Journalism 417 class, 21 students who produced stories with political and social implications for the state.

Students designed, illustrated, edited and published the magazine, in addition to raising about $1,200 in advertising revenue.

For some years, students produced a print version of Wisconsin Journalism Review, but switched to an online format called Online Wisconsin in the mid-1990s. But Culver says the print magazine returned in 2002 as Curb.

“The magazine industry has not found a successful online business model, so it was clear that if students wanted to go into the magazine field, we had to have a print vehicle,” Culver says.

The 2003 magazine’s centerpiece is an article about Milwaukee’s Sherman Park, a racially integrated and diverse neighborhood that could offer a model for the rest of the state’s largest city.

The magazine also includes stories about the International Crane Foundation outside of Baraboo, minor league baseball in Wisconsin, the state’s Hmong community, and the debate over defining marriage in Wisconsin as being between one man and one woman.

Students also refined their target audience, focusing on civically involved readers, such as public officials, opinion leaders, and political and social activists around the state.

“The students felt there was a niche for this market, because there’s not a magazine in Wisconsin that serves that group,” Culver says, adding that the experience taught valuable real-world lessons in teamwork.

Curb has on online cousin, http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/curb, that offers the content as well as multimedia components including music, film clips, maps and articles exclusive to the site.