Magazine writer Claire Hoffman, who did the recent New Yorker interview with Prince talking about gay marriage, discusses that Joe Francis piece she did for the old L.A. Times magazine, her reportorial interest in religion and sex, her transition to teaching journalism at UC Riverside and the scary prospects for the magazine biz — and other topics. At Brian Palmer's blog:

I went to journalism school when I was 26. When I went to Columbia I got an internship for the whole year at The New York Times in their investigative department. It was really cool and incredibly hard. They tell you that you’re not supposed to work in journalism school because they’re cramming everything into 10 month. So I ended up doing that and working all day on Tuesdays, and trying to take the opportunity to freelance for them. It was stressful, but it was also great. Obviously that internship really helped me....

I went to Columbia, and then went to divinity school and got out in June of 2005 and immediately drove to LA, where I had yet another internship with The LA Times, which was supposed to finish in August, but they kept me, although at an intern’s salary, for six more months. Which was pretty rough. So I worked there as a sort of extended intern. Newspapers seem to like nothing better than to push young people away. That seems to be changing, but they were doing everything they could to discourage me....

I was working at the business section of the LA Times and it seemed like nobody was writing about the adult entertainment industry, and it was such a big one. No one was even really interested in it in the newsroom. I have always found it an intriguing business, like most people, and I was covering Hollywood, so it was this nice antidote in that everybody was willing to talk to me. They were all so open, as opposed to writing about Hollywood where everything is off the record and secret and they won’t say anything. So that was really why I started writing about it. If you think about it, there are things between sex and religion that are really similar.

She says that after Joe Francis assaulted and threatened her, the Times moved her into protective housing for awhile: "I left town when [the story] came out."

Also: Palmer's pics of brokers with their hands on their faces.