FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

For the better part of 2007, the market for consumer magazine mergers and acquisitions was pretty quiet. (Maybe not as quiet as, say, the stark open country of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, but quiet still.) As one banker noted during the American Magazine Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, in October, he was there "to play golf," because "nothing is happening here. Zilch."

But within the span of 45 minutes friday morning, a pair of billion dollar magazine deals were announced.

The first, Gemstar-TV Guide's More...

As you know, it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. And as far as magazine chatter goes, it's seemingly been a long week for Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner.

Let's start here: the magazine published its seemingly four-hundredth 40th anniversary issue with something called "Indie Rock Universe," a nine-page spread-sponsored by cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds-that drew the ire of indie rock bands and those who monitor Big Tobacco (think Pacino in The Insider) for using cartoons in what they claim is an adver More...

A pair of stories FOLIO: reported on this week–the federal suit brought against cigarette-maker R.J. Reynolds over an alleged "advertorial" that contained cartoons, and a Harper's Bazaar cover that contained 258 sponsored Swarovski crystals–required comment from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the arm of the Magazine Publishers of America that issues members guidelines on such foggy areas as magazine ethics.

Here's ASME's response:

From: Kaha More...

Harper’s Bazaar recently embedded 5,000 copies of its December issue cover with “Swarovski crystal elements”—258 of them, to be exact, hand-affixed by Swarovski—and sent them to VIPs in the fashion, beauty and media industries, including, naturally, me.

A week ago, 10,000 copies of New York’s December 10 issue were printed with a four-page cover wrap advertising the New Museum—using part of the magazine’s logo in its design. The special copies were mailed to a select list of the city's "culturati," Andrew Essex, CEO of Droga5, the a More...

Beliefnet editor Steve Waldman, whose spiritual Ellie-award winning site just got sold to News Corp., More...

Both Yahoo and Google have released their answers to magazine editors' fun-yet-ultimately-meaningless year-end lists: the Top 10 Search Terms of 2007. And, in what qualifies as a non-shocker, no magazine-specific terms apply. (Although celebrity magazine publishers are no doubt thrilled to learn that "TMZ" was the #3 most Googled of 2007, ahead of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.)

The lists:

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Paris Hilton
4. Naruto
5. Beyonce
6. Lindsay Lohan
7. Rune Scape
8. Fantasy Football
9. Fergie
10. Jessica Alba

More...

We've all gotten used to the idea of the e-mail interview, the interview via instant messenger (the "IMterview"), even cover story interview conducted via Blackberry (see: Lindsay Lohan, GQ et al). But what about using the Blackberry logs to back up investigative reporting? Definitely never thought I'd type this sentence, but here goes: It appears as though In Touch magazine has become the first major magazine to reprint photo evidence of a Blackberry text message exchange to back up claims in a reported story-specifically, that Brit More...

"Destitute" may be a bit strong, but this little nugget from FOLIO:'s recap of a Fall MRI report came as a bit of a shock:

Surprisingly, readers of Esquire magazine-which distinguishes itself in its online media kit by touting "while other men's magazines are written for highly aspirational readers, Esquire is geared towards men who have arrived"-have the lowest median household income for adults ($53,783) among five of its top competitors. (To be fair, Esquire's readership has seen a marked increase in affluence since 2002, when it had a median income o More...

As part of its pre-election push, Newsweek recently announced the addition of ex-White House senior advisor Karl Rove as a columnist, his glossy appointment coming a day after the magazine named Markos Moulitsas, founder of the popular liberal politics blog and tradeshow Daily Kos. Good move by editor Jon Meacham: a right-wing pundit to balance Markos' lefty politics. But why waste two outspoken personalities on the print magazine?

Here's an idea: Give ‘em both Newsweek-branded blogs and have them face off before, during and after debates and conventions, allowing readers to join More...

Playboy magazine is hosting its second "America's Sexiest Sportscaster" poll, which closes today. A typically chauvinistic move setting women's journalism back 15 years. (Sports Illustrated, for some reason, called it "the season's second most-discussed poll.") The whole thing makes about as much sense as Miss Landmine 2008 (a real competition-seriously).

That said, I gua More...

The Atlantic Monthly celebrated its 150th anniversary with a party in New York earlier this month. It picked the scholarly Kimmel Center at New York University as the venue. The venue had a stage. Instead of, say, using the stage for a panel or discussion, it served for the bulk of the evening as an awkward VIP area, where the important guests like Arianna Huffington, Moby and Mayor Bloomberg partied while 600 or so readers (a.k.a N.I.P.s) were forced to watch. It’s admirable that David Bradley and a magazine like the Atlantic would want to include its readers. But not like this, man. Give everyone access, find another venue or throw tw More...

Slate's Mickey Kaus has a nice extrapolation on what's behind Ron Burkle's pursuit of American Media Inc.:

Soon he'll presumably have the power to kill any scandalous story in the Enquirer or Star that might hurt his friends (the Clintons). And he'll have the power to run the stories that will hurt his enemies. And for those who might help the Clintons now (by, say, splitting the anti-Hillary vote) but hurt them later--well, he'll be able to choose the timing of any further exposes. ... Look at it from the More...