(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Columbia J-schoolers got a lesson in too-good-to-check journalism when they had tabloid doyenne Bonnie Fuller (who runs the Enquirer and Star) in to speak in late January. Women’s Wear Daily reported that it was “an invitation she accepted, in part, because she hoped to attract recruits to her magazines”—which set off a blog firestorm and a mildly hysterical column in Ad Age. WWD also quoted Columbia Society of Professional Journalists speakers director Amanda Millner-Fairbanks, 26, seemingly commending Fuller as “sort of the mother hen of this new form that’s taken hold and is very profitable.” All of which left Millner-Fairbanks exasperated. First off, she says, Fuller’s publicist had pitched the idea—hard—to them, not the other way around. Plus, she felt the WWD quote was out of context. “It’s not like we were giving her an excellence-in-journalism award—it’s not as if we invited her and Judy Miller in for a luncheon,” she says. “The whole thing makes me feel a bit trepidatious about entering this world, where the codes of conduct are such a gray area.” Still, Fuller did say she was hiring.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Sara Cardace
• Table of Contents: February 20, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!