Freelancers can land a cool $2 a word with a successful pitch to Ladies’ Home Journal. The mag underwent a redesign for the digital age in March of 2012, incorporating much more reader input in its editorial content. Though editors mostly assign stories to their stable of freelancers, many of them started out with a pitch.

“We welcome pitches because we’re always looking for new [writers],” said Lorraine Glennon, senior books and articles editor.

To go along with the redesign, editorial content has shifted towards first person stories, like “The Divorced Mom’s Guide to Online Dating” which told the story of a newly divorced mother of two who decides to venture into the online dating world.

So, how can you land a byline in this newsstand staple? Get all the details and editors’ contact info in How To Pitch: Ladies’ Home Journal. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

While Twilight fans were busy camping out in downtown Los Angeles this weekend for tonight’s Breaking Dawn – Part 2 premiere, another overnight line-up sprung up Friday-Saturday in Muncie, Indiana. It was for a different kind of sequel: the November 26 installment of Ball State’s David Letterman Lecture Series featuring very special guest Oprah Winfrey.

Per a report in the Ball State Daily News:

Some students had spent more than 15 hours outside for the tickets. For the overnight stay, students brought everything from a tent to a dog…

This event is once in a lifetime, Kyle Williams, a junior fashion merchandising major said. “Twenty years from now, I will be able to say I got a free ticket in college to see Oprah,” Williams said.

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Wow, what a difference a year makes at GOOD. Around this time last year, we wrote how the media company, infused with cash from its “Pepsi Refresh” marketing project, was putting serious bucks into its editorial side. They had 19 job positions open. Several of those positions would later be filled by journalist Ann Friedman and the team she assembled to run GOOD magazine. Friedman’s tenure helming the mag was generally considered to be a major journalistic improvement over GOOD’s previous incarnations.

One year later, however, Friedman and her staff were let go, and it seems like the company has chosen to go in the complete opposite direction. Mediawire noticed that GOOD is once again hiring. But instead of journalists, this time around they’re looking for “content curators” and “brand apostles.”

From a business perspective, all of this makes a certain amount of sense. As we reported a year ago, GOOD was making a killing on the ever-expanding marketing side of its business. “We’re proud of the work that goes into the magazine,” GOOD founder Casey Caplowe told me, “but at this point it’s almost a side project.”

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In a brief email to TheWrap’s Steve Pond, Bowling for Columbine Oscar winner Michael Moore commented with a heavy heart but still some level of hope about this morning’s horrific events in Aurora, CO:

I believe anthropologists and historians will look back on us and simply conclude that we were a violent nation, at home and abroad, but in due time human decency won out and the violence ceased, but not before many, many more had died and the world had had its fill of us.

The first reader to react to Moore’s take vehemently disagrees.
Writes dinosferrari:

Listen Michael – I respect your right to say what you want but I must stop you when you assert that my country is a violent county. These awful tragedies happen. Not long ago a deranged man went crazy and started shooting people on an island in Norway. He killed 80 people! Violence is not confined to America or Colorado nor is it confined to the 21st Century. Earlier civilizations were routinely far more violent than anything we see revolving today…

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As details began to emerge this morning about the apparent perpetrator of the horrific Aurora, CO tragedy, members of the San Diego media were forced to confront some unwelcome news. Twenty-four-year-old James Holmes grew up in the area.

Veteran journalist Don Bauder was one of the first among those to post locally about this aspect of the fatal mass shooting, via the San Diego Reader website. About an hour and a half later, Bauder added more info in the comments:

Holmes graduated from Westview High School in 2006. He attended a biotech boot camp at Miramar College. He also apparently worked at Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His mother and father live in Rancho Peñasquitos, where he once lived.

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Marc Cook was appointed the new editor-in-chief of Motorcyclist, the El Segundo based motorcycle publication. It’s a homecoming for Cook, who previously worked for the magazine from 1999-2002 as a senior editor and executive editor.

He left Motorcyclist and spent the last eight years as the editor-in-chief of Kitplanes, an amateur-built airplanes journal.

“Motorcyclist is a terrific brand and a magazine that’s true to the enthusiast; it’s lively, occasionally controversial and never dull,” Cook said in a statement. “Obviously I’m excited to be back here as editor-in-chief. It’s a fantastic title with a great history, so it’s absolutely the place to be.”

“We have a young and talented staff that is not only eager to work, but made up of hyper-enthusiasts who understand this stuff on a molecular level. It’s a treat to work with folks like that because you don’t have to inspire or provide enthusiasm – they bring it with them to work every day.”

U-T San Diego has hired Larry Graham as their new executive sports editor.

Graham is currently the NFL editor at ESPN.com and was previously the sports editor at the Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina. He’s moving to San Diego in September for the newly created position by the paper.

Below is the memo from editor Jeff Light:

I’m pleased to announce that Larry Graham will be joining us this fall as our executive sports editor. Larry is currently an NFL editor at ESPN.com.

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When Michael Ovitz departed CAA in the mid-1990s, screenwriter-novelist Doug Richardson found himself unexpectedly caught up in a blaze of media coverage.

In a blog post titled “Spiking the Football,” he recalls that because he happened to leave the agency for William Morris right before Ovitz’s exit, he was lumped together somewhat hilariously with David E. Kelley in LA Times and New York Times coverage. Separately, when Richardson’s new agents packaged his first nove Dark Horse for mid-six figures, he did an interview with Variety’s Mike Fleming. Which got him into a lot of trouble:

“So,” said Fleming. “John Travolta as star. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard as producers. How’s that feel?”

“Great,” I answered, then added something I thought was funny. “Who knew I’d have to leave CAA to get packaged.”

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Fresh off its Pulitzer victory, the Huffington Post is staffing up. The media group named former Spotify president of engineering John Pavley its new chief technology officer today.

“The first time I walked into the Huffington Post newsroom I knew I wanted to be a member of this team,” Pavley said in a release. “I hope to fan the flame that Arianna and her team have ignited with technological innovations that engage, entertain and, most of all, help us navigate this new world without the technology getting in the way.”

Pavley, a former Apple guy from back in the early 90′s, will oversee HuffPo’s programming team.