Is there an article doctor in the house?
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, Alex Beam's column in the Jan. 11 Living/Arts section erroneously reported that Jason Binn, CEO of Niche Media, had printed an advertising flier that contained a fake Names item from The Boston Globe. In fact, the item was real and appeared in the Globe on Sept. 22, not Sept. 23 as the flier stated.)
Jason Binn
Chief Executive Officer
Niche Media LLC
New York
Dear Jason,
Happy New Year. I hope your luxury magazines -- Aspen Peak, Gotham, Los Angeles Confidential, Capitol File, Hamptons, and Boston Common -- are thriving. I have never actually seen Boston Common, because I don't make enough money ($250,000 a year) or charge enough stuff ($100,000 annually) to qualify to receive it. I popped down to the Four Seasons and the Ritz-Carlton yesterday to buy a copy, but they didn't have any. Sold out, I guess.
I know it seems like you and I got off on the wrong foot before I wrote that profile of you that appeared in the Globe on Sept. 20 of last year. You seemed so worried that you sent me a long letter just before we went to press, copying your litigators at Mintz Levin, fretting that my ''article will not be factually accurate and will defame Niche Media and me." Now you acknowledge that ''the article was a fair piece," but of course that was my intention all along.
I'm glad that your concerns were unfounded. In fact, I see that you've been using my article to promote your magazines! Fantastic! I'm sure you asked for our permission to do so, because otherwise you would be violating our copyright. In your latest e-mail, you write that ''my use of the article excerpts in this way is fully permitted by the law. Do you believe otherwise?" Yes, Jason, I do. I believe ''blatant copyright infringement" is the phrase used in a cease-and-desist letter sent to you about a month ago.
Jason, there are a couple of other things about your use of our articles that bother me. I'm flattered that you like my work -- might there be a niche for me at Niche Media? -- but your promotional flier quotes from my article . . . selectively. For some reason, you omitted what we call the lead, which referred to your magazine as ''a 352-page doorstop" filled with ''puffy, party-oriented proto-journalism."
By the way, I was sorry to read in Mark Jurkowitz's blog that the second issue had shrunk to 256 pages. Believe me, things are tough all over.
Back to your creative excerpting of my article. I can understand why you omitted that line about how your Washington magazine, Capitol File, opportunistically slapped Ashley Judd on the cover, even though she doesn't live in Washington. And it wasn't very charitable of me to provide an example of what passes for journalism in your magazines -- where your interviewer invites Judd to gush about her ''first AIDS orphan." Snip, snip. And that line about your magazines ''blur[ring] the supposedly sacrosanct line between advertising and editorial content"? Maybe you should have included that, so advertisers would understand just what kind of journalism you deliver.
To be fair, I quoted both you and Boston Common editor Kim Atkinson ''heatedly deny[ing] that Niche's magazines are just display windows to show off advertisers' wares." But you didn't use that remark either. I wandered onto the Boston Common website and noticed that your advertiser Joseph Abboud (''a force in men's fashion for 30 years") was handing out ''style counsel" in the recent holiday issue. It is indeed ''a perfect example of when marketing and journalism merge" -- that's a magazine consultant's quote that you did use, although you misspelled the man's name.
This same advertising flier also purports to quote in its entirety an item about the Boston Common launch party that appeared in our Names column on Sept. 23. Our headline was: ''A Pretty Common Party by Binn." Your headline was: ''A Party That's Anything But Common." What's strange is that your item in no way resembles what we printed. Your lead: ''The Cyclorama was the place to be last night . . ." Our lead: ''In the end, the party put on by publisher Jason Binn to celebrate the launch of his new mag Boston Common wasn't all that." Curiously, you stitched a line from my profile of you into the fake Names item.
According to this flier, you'll have a new issue of Boston Common on the streets this week. I'll look forward to reading it. If I can find it, that is.
Best wishes for 2006,
Alex Beam
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist.His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
