La Dolt Vita

Recently in Regina, a couple or three glossy lifestyle magazines like the one pictured have popped up. It's a business model that's been popularized in larger cities, and now that Regina (and Saskatoon up north) have supposedly "arrived" as prosperous and sophisticated urban centres we too get to have our own lifestyle magazines.

Through two different avenues I've been privy to a solicitation from the editor of Fine Lifestyles Regina seeking people to write for the magazine. Here's the form the pitch takes: He's looking for two kinds of writing: features (longer stories not tied to a particular advertiser) and advertorial (typically business profiles, these are part of an advertising package purchased by a client and subject to the client's approval).

As a business model, I suppose whoring a significant portion of your "editorial" content to garner advertising revenue might work. Although you'd think Reginans would have better things to do with their time than read what amounts to a glorified advertising insert. Or maybe not. But as far as any claim these magazines might make to journalistic credibility, forget about it.