SAN MARCOS -- Home-grown journalists are folding their experience as student newspaper editors into a publication geared for the students on the college campuses of North County and aimed at giving journalism in the region a sharp new edge.

The paper, called 78 and named for the ribbon of freeway that connects Cal State San Marcos, Palomar College and MiraCosta College, is on the streets now with its third issue -- complete with an eyebrow-raising cover of a man being slapped by a woman to illustrate the pre-Valentine's Day theme, "Lookin' for Love: A Relationship Guide."

Inside, the paper devotes six full pages to the theme, featuring six columns purporting to help readers discover their "relationship profile," from "the player" who considers monogamy a game, to "a woman scorned ... (who) has paid her dues to the relationship gods and ... deserves a break."

Editor Tom Chambers, a graduate of the Palomar journalism program who doubles now as a reporter for the News Chieftain in Poway, says he's been seeking a tone "a little bit on the edgy side" that incorporates not only hard news and in-depth reporting on student issues, but also what he acknowledges is a caustic satirical bent that not every reader has found humorous.

A case in point -- the story that started people talking on the North County campuses -- appeared in the first issue under the headline, "Get it On in the Dorm." It came out just as Cal State San Marcos opened residence halls on campus for the first time ever and it opened the paper up to charges of misogyny and helping men con women into bed. A raft of copies disappeared from one of the racks at the CSU campus, only to turn up in a dumpster.

A conversation piece

Readers on the campuses say the paper at least gives people something to talk about, even though the quality of the journalism may not always be praiseworthy.

At Palomar College, student journalist Charles Steinman said he found the current issue's package on relationships "very entertaining" and the notorious sex-in-the-dorms story "very sarcastic." The tone to some was too caustic to be funny but, he added, "The audience overreacted."

Jessica Musicar, another Palomar student and freelance writer, said the paper is open to a charge of sexism and the dormitory sex piece could be seen as a "guide to rape."

A one-time 78 staff member, Musicar said she stopped writing for the paper because she developed a roster of paying clients, among them the North County Times.

Musicar said that students in the region would be hard-pressed to find stories in other papers about neat classes being offered at the schools and talented musicians performing in North County venues. "There's nothing really like this out there that addresses the students at all three colleges," she said.

At Cal State San Marcos, Sarah Carlin got the assignment from the Pride student newspaper to cover 78's appearance on campus in the fall -- and its disappearance into the dumpster. She said the stack of dumped papers was 2 1/2 feet high.

"My personal opinion was that I did not really like the sex article," Carlin said. "It was immature, seventh-grade humor. However, that does not give anyone the right to throw the papers away. It's ironic, too, when you see that the theme of the issue was free speech."

The paper is improving with each edition, she added, but readers don't seem to be responding yet in the droves required by a mass medium. It may relate to a climate of political correctness among the students, coupled with their "sort of conservative" bent, she said.

In the "Spill It" column, also known as letters to the editor, readers sounded off, condemning the 78 for sexism and irresponsibility.

"Your vision ... has failed," wrote one reader, "and has undermined itself to just another sleazy, ignorant tabloid ..."

Different in the future

Chambers says now that 78 would not cover sex on campus quite that way again. He also acknowledges that some of the story's attempts at humor fell far short of being funny. But more readers were entertained than not, he said, adding, "I think that if you look at it through an objective perspective, you would see that the piece is a funny piece. Clearly, it's not serious, just from the tone. And I'll tell you flat out as the editor that we did the sex in the dorms story for the first issue because sex sells."

Wayne Short, 78's advertising and business manager, added that the story may have gone over the edge that the paper wants to hone.

"That particular story probably pushed as far as we want to push," he said. "We want a light side, with an edge. ... We lost some readers over it, but there's also lots of women who didn't have a problem with it. The ideas were not too far off base. Maybe it was the way it was worded."

And perhaps, Chambers suggests, the story got the paper enough attention that readers would pick it up to see stories such as the January-February report on the twists and turns that went into San Diego State's decision in December to scrap Monty Montezuma as mascot over racial issues.

Some tough issues

Wendy Nelson, a Palomar professor who taught Chambers, Keller and Short in her journalism classes, called the dorm piece "lazy, stereotypical reporting" that tried to be tongue-in-cheek. She said she was "disappointed ... but not surprised" at the piece, which used the techniques of magazines such as Maxim that seek a college-age audience not likely to do much outside reading.

Nelson added, though, that 78 has tackled issues in depth and presented news and features in a straightforward, clear, in-depth way,

Among stories that she and other readers cite: A "status report" on free speech on campus that notes how budget cuts have curtailed expansion plans at the MiraCosta student newspaper, the Chariot; a look in the premiere issue at concentration in the radio broadcasting industry in San Diego, complete with a description of a pirate station at 96.9 FM that describes itself as a "collective run in nature;" a 10-column, two-page spread on an innovative class at Palomar that looks at comic books, or graphic novels, as serious literary forms; and a column launched in the current issue about what it's like to be young and married in modern-day North County.

Breaking even

With the latest press run at 5,000, or one copy for around every five students who frequent the main campuses of the three institutions, 78's leaders say the paper is breaking even.

"We're not getting rich, but we're paying the costs of publication at this point," Short said in an interview last week, "and that's way ahead of where we thought we'd be, which was that we wouldn't be covering our costs until June." One reason ends are met is that the editorial staff is working for free. Chambers said the paper's aim is to pay them by September. The staff box lists 17 writers who, Chambers said, are willing to work for free for the chance to spread the journalistic wings that the student newspapers often clip.

"One of our aims is to give the burgeoning writers on the campuses another outlet to have their work published," he said. "When you're working on the college papers, you're kind of limited as to what you can do."

Short, 37, who returned to college three years ago after spending six years in the Navy and another six as a civilian athletic director for the U.S. Department of Defense, joined Chambers and art director Desmond Barca in putting up $1,000 each in the summer of 2003 for the start-up. Barca graduated with the class of 2003 at CSUSM, where he was a designer on the Pride student newspaper. They formed a California corporation called Red Monkey Media.