Welcome back to another edition of FishbowlNY’s Cover Battle, where each Thursday we throw two magazines in a pit of fire and see which lasts the longest. Sort of.

This week we have Town & Country versus Time Out New York. T&C went with a photograph of Lauren Hutton from 1968. There’s also a headline that reads “Hawaii’s Sexiest Secret: Bikini Island.” This confuses us, because isn’t a bikini considered standard clothing there? Maybe it’s a sexy secret because even dudes wear bikinis? And dogs! You’ll have to read the article to find out.

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Land just one assignment for Every Day With Rachael Ray, and you’re well on your way to establishing a relationship with the editors there. Sixty percent of the book is freelance written and editors regularly assign ideas to their trusted stable of writers. A couple of sections are particularly friendly to newbies — just make sure your pitch fits the pub’s lively tone, and soon, your byline could be traveling to the mag’s 1.7 million-plus readers.

Reading the magazine is “like your best friend is helping you cook dinner or helping plan your trip,” explained executive lifestyle editor Sonal Dutt. “So I think what sets us apart from anybody else is that we do have a real person that our reader can relate to, can see on their television and can feel like she’s there with you, guiding you through the process.”

For more info, read How To Pitch: Every Day With Rachael Ray.
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Some drama occurred recently when Deborah Needleman, editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, said she considered adding some fat to a cover model she thought was too thin. Naturally some people were outraged, because they apparently have never picked up a magazine. Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ public editor, followed up on the situation, and found that the Times holds fashion photos to a different standard than news photos.

Michele McNally, the Times’ assistant managing editor for photography, explained, “Fashion is fantasy. Readers understand this. It’s totally manipulated, with everything done for aesthetics.” Philip Corbett, associate managing editor for standards, added, “This is a different genre of photography [than news]. It has different goals, different tools and techniques, and there is a different expectation on the part of the reader.”

In other words: Don’t be an idiot. Of course fashion photos are altered. If you’re upset by this, consider taking photos meant to sell material goods a little less seriously.

In an EXCLUSIVE Time has obtained a photo of President Obama before his senior prom. Pictured are Kelli Allman (née McCormack), Greg Orme, Obama and Obama’s date, Megan Hughes. Obama’s the black guy.

Not only did Time publish this IMPORTANT photograph, it also posted what Obama wrote in Allman’s yearbook. It reveals a lot about the President; specifically that he was fairly boring. “It has been so nice getting to know you this year,” he wrote. “You are extremely sweet and foxy, I don’t know why Greg would want to spend any time with me at all! You really deserve better than clowns like us; you even laugh at my jokes!”

Well, there you have it. Good luck going through the rest of your day without pondering the IMPORTANCE of the photograph and note.

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Judge Apologizes for Lack of Transparency in James Rosen Leak Probe (The Washington Post)
The chief judge of the District’s federal court issued an unusual order Wednesday, apologizing to the public and the media for not making certain court documents widely available online. The gesture of transparency by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth comes at a time when the Obama administration is under scrutiny for an unprecedented number of leak investigations, including one showing that the Justice Department had secretly probed the news-gathering activities of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Politico / Under The Radar The Justice Department is denying that it tracked the phone calls of Rosen’s parents as part of an investigation into how Rosen got classified information about North Korean nuclear test plans. “We did not wiretap the phones of any reporter or news organization. Nor did we monitor or track the phone calls of any reporter’s parents. No records were obtained from the computer servers of any news organization,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement. TVNewser The news of the full extent of the investigation comes as editorials take aim squarely at the Obama administration for valuing secrecy over freedom of the press. The Washington Post / Dana Milbank There are various reasons you might not care about the Obama administration’s spying on Rosen and labeling him a “co-conspirator and/or aider and abettor” in an espionage case. Liberals may not be particularly bothered because the targeted journalist works for Fox News. Conservatives may not be concerned because of their antipathy toward the news media generally. And the general public certainly doesn’t have much patience for journalists’ whining. Read more

TVNewser: Piers Morgan is writing a memoir tentatively titled How to Annoy People Without Really Trying.

AllTwitter: Joan Rivers said “When it all goes to shit, don’t worry, it’ll all come back.” This was also the original title of Cypress Hill’s “When The Shit Goes Down.”

GalleyCat: A good roundup of job changes at book publishing houses. It’s exciting.

Sorry, folks. Our fair Diane Clehane is off for the day, but Lunch will be back next week. (Hmm, wonder who got her usual perch at Michael’s?) In the meantime, check out some of her recent celebrity spottings and interviews:

Bravo ‘Newlyweds’ Alaska and Kim Dish on Reality TV Instafame

David Zinczenko on His New ‘High-Profile Life’ and the Real Story Behind His Leaving Rodale

Isabella Rossellini’s Animal Instincts

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists has announced the finalists for its 2013 column contest. One name to note: Roger Ebert. His column was nominated in the Online, Blog and Multimedia category.

Congrats to all the nominees, who we’ve listed below. The winners will be named June 29.

General Interest, Newspapers over 50,000 Circulation

Dave Lieber, Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Thomas Rademacher, The Grand Rapids Press; Rich Telander, Chicago Sun-Times.

Humor, Newspapers over 50,000 Circulation

Samantha Bennett, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Bob Dyer, Akron Beacon Journal; Brian O’Connor, The Detroit News.

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Bloomberg Businessweek is taking a creative approach to nabbing new readers: It’s calling them out for being deadbeats. The magazine has launched a minisite BBWgetsyouahead.com to get people interested. BBW jokes aside, the site offers digital gift cards — good for 12 free issues of Businessweek — that people can send to Millennials who are underemployed or unemployed and still living with the moms and pops.

There are 42 different gift cards, each with a humorous tagline like “Even Snooki has a job.” The cards and the site are part of a larger ad campaign titled “Bloomberg Businessweek Gets You Ahead.”

Free Businessweek is nice, but it probably won’t help any of those 18 to 34 year olds actually get a job or their own place. But hey, they might as well have a good magazine to peruse while deepening the dent in the living room couch.