Getting the exclusive

Let the air-kissing begin.

Starting tomorrow, Boston gets its very own celebri-zine, Boston Common, a 352-page doorstop filled with glossy ads for things you can't afford -- diamond-encrusted watches, fabulous homes -- and puffy, party-oriented proto-journalism.

Boston Common comes to us from Jason Binn, a 37-year-old graduate of Boston University. Binn, the CEO of New York's Niche Media, is the Energizer Bunny of the luxury magazine world. With financial backers such as film producer Harvey Weinstein and his father, Moreton Binn, a once-legendary Manhattan businessman specializing in barter, he has been working overtime to give the glitterati the kind of journalism they want. That means nice, well-lit pictures and interviews with questions like, ''How do you jam philanthropy into your busy schedule?"

''When people see themselves in his pages, they see a reflection of their upscale lifestyle," says magazine consultant Samir Husni, who is the chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi. ''It puffs their ego -- he's making customers for life."

Advertisers love the Niche environment, replete with tales of the beautiful people, looking beautiful, doing beautiful things. Binn's Capitol File magazine in Washington, also debuting this month, features a long cover feature on actress Ashley Judd (who doesn't happen to live in Washington), looking very glamorous while she tours Africa as a ''global ambassador" for YouthAIDS, with videographers from the music cable channel VH1 in tow. In the story, Judd gushes about her ''first AIDS orphan," and Binn's interviewer asks: ''Your first orphan. Would you like to talk about that?"

Binn says his magazines service his ''community" -- households with more than $250,000 in annual income, or who live in homes worth at least $1 million, or who rack up more than $100,000 annually on their credit cards. ''We are all about the local market," says Binn. ''We tell people where to buy things -- we celebrate each city we're in."

Binn is credited -- or reviled -- in the publishing industry for inventing a new genre of journalism: a national, controlled-circulation magazine chain for rich people. (Controlled circulation means the magazine is handed out free rather than sold on the newsstand or by subscription.) ''In the 1980s, you had local, controlled-circulation magazines," says Jack Limpert, editor of Washingtonian, a city magazine that competes with Binn for some ads. ''Now Binn can get national ads from Prada and Ralph Lauren."

Like many fashion or bridal magazines, Binn's books blur the supposedly sacrosanct line between advertising and editorial content. ''The merging of product placements into editorial has totally shaken up our business," says Jon Marcus, editor of Boston magazine, which will now compete with Boston Common. ''It's the wave of the future in advertising."

Binn and his Boston editor Kim Atkinson, a former executive editor at Boston magazine, both heatedly deny that Niche's magazines are just display windows for showing off advertisers' wares. ''The editorial is controlled by the editor," Binn says. ''I have no idea who our advertisers are," Atkinson insists. ''I would never have taken this job if I didn't think it was completely free of advertisers' influence."

But a glance inside Binn's glossy covers shows the symbiotic nature of Niche's journalism. Fox News advertises in Binn's Washington magazine; two of its anchor people appear in a ''power" profile. (''It's their first ad ever," Binn says.) An article in Capitol File reports that Barneys New York's creative director and his partner ''both have new projects bringing them to D.C."; Barneys appears on Niche's list of national advertisers. ''They don't advertise in Capitol File," Binn says. ''There is no connection whatsoever."

Elsewhere in the magazine, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright comments that she likes to wear Ferragamo shoes; the brand name is highlighted in the text. Three pages away one finds a full-page Ferragamo ad. Binn points out that many of the people photographed in his magazines wear the jewels and gowns made by his advertisers, such as Armani and Jimmy Choo, because that's what they wear in real life. He comments: ''When Madeleine Albright talks about luxury lifestyle, that's the kind of story an editor wants."

Dual agendas abound. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler appears on the inaugural cover of Boston Common, and he happens to be plugging a new clothing line. Larry King is a contributor to the Washington magazine, advertises his charitable foundation in the magazine, and appears in a full-page photograph attending one of Binn's bashes. ''So Larry King likes to come to our parties," says Atkinson. ''What's the big deal?"

''His magazines are a perfect example of when marketing and journalism merge into one entity," says Husni. ''I know a lot of people in the media hate his guts, but it's a matter of jealousy. I think he's doing a marvelous job."

Niche Media is a private company and doesn't publicly report any financial results. Binn notes that Business Week and Advertising Age have reported that Niche has about $40 million in annual revenue, and he claims the company is growing at about 20 percent a year. He plans to open a new magazine in Atlantic City this spring.

Even his competitors give him props for presentation skills. ''The magazines are very slick," says Limpert. ''They've got good photographers, and they design them out of New York." Art direction and production are in fact handled in New York, Binn explains. Atkinson, the only full-time editorial employee in Boston, says she supervises a small, New York-based editorial staff that she shares with the editor of Capitol File. A Boston Common spread featuring Boston fashions was shot in New York, Atkinson explains, ''because the models are prettier."

The Boston Common print run will be 70,000, with half of those issues mailed to upscale homes. Four percent of the print run will be handed out at ''high profile events," according to the magazine's mission statement, 12 percent will go to high-end hotels, and 2,800 copies are earmarked as a ''university drop to graduate students and professors."

It remains to be seen whether a magazine essentially devoted to celebrity pet tricks can make a dent in Boston, where the president of Harvard is Somebody and the city's real movers and shakers hide in the suburbs. The biggest boldface names at the first of Binn's two launch parties were the ubiquitous Michelle Mangan, also known as Mrs. Johnny Damon, and restaurateur Todd English, who is writing for Boston Common and also happens to be an advertiser.

Other contributors to Boston Common include usual suspects like Alan Dershowitz and chef Michael Schlow, as well as some nice flashes of invention: Jay Leno reveals his favorite jokes about Boston, and Louis Boston president Debbie Greenberg addresses the theme, ''If all men think about is sex, why don't they dress for it?"

For the record, Binn scoffs at the notion that he can't thrive in a celebrity-free zone. He says he's not in the business of publishing celebrity magazines, anyway. ''The fact that we put the celebrity on the cover does not make us a celebrity magazine," he says. ''The people who make up the community are our celebrities."