Forbe's 24th Richest Person in the World, Russia's Mikhail Prokhorov, plans to sink $150 million of his $22 billion into a magazine titled Snob.

From Reuters:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary's online edition, www.askoxford.com, a snob is: "A person who has an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth and who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior."

Shmarov said Russians attach a different meaning to the word,

"Snob to us means a person who is a 'self-made man', a person who has gained a right to snobbishness," he said emphasizing the main difference with the British meaning which he said referred to inherited wealth.

Meh. They say tomato - we say nouveau riche.

Today is Earth Day. You'd hardly know if from the newspapers or press we've seen today. Really nothing about Earth Day or celebrations or observations.

We think environmentalism has become broader in recent years - farther reaching. So it's a staple of news now.

However, Earth Day tradition has devolved into April being the Green Issue for most magazines. That's it.

Agree? Think that's retarded? Let's discuss.

CEO and President of BlackBook Production, Jolie Adams is now with 944 Magazine and will be VP of regional marketing and operations, overseeing day-to-day business operations, special events, target magazine distribution and advertising sales.

As part of this announcement 944 adds:

Beginning with its April issue, 944 Magazine will prove it is once again at the forefront of the magazine industry as it makes the switch to environmentally friendly paper for its second annual GREEN Issue. 944 Magazine has partnered with Creel Printing to utilize an eco-friendly paper resource certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - an international certification and labeling system that ensures forest products are derived from responsibly managed forests and verifiable recycled sources.

That's better than some, as FBNY notes.

Shawn Hubler, has a cover story on the sadder-but-wiser Mirthala Salinas in Los Angeles magazine. Salinas regrets the affair with the Mayor, which happened due to the stress of her mother's death, and is now engaged to mortgage broker Yanni Raz, who's a change from her usual brand of politically connected beaus.

Mirthala might be a charmer, but boy, is she a dull interview:

"What can I say?" Mirthala Salinas asks, smiling. "I'm a romantic."

Hubler is observant, and just a tiny bit acid:

She wears pale lip gloss and a little mascara, which will run later when she cries.

To be honest, Cory Kennedy, whom Hubler profiled a while back, sounds like a lot more fun.

(photo by Jill Greenberg)

Folio: magazine, not to be confused with Conde Nast's money-loser Portfolio, makes some list of magazine world influentials or top folks or something like that:

The 2008 FOLIO: 40
Our annual list of magazine industry influencers and innovators.
Welcome to the 2008 FOLIO: 40—the oldest, most comprehensive and most
distinguished compilation of its kind. As always, we've spent the lastyear examining the entire industry, as well as a few markets that
intersect it, for individuals who best represent an increasingly
multifaceted media landscape.

Multifaceted landscape? Like mountains and ditches? Anyway, the Californians who made the list are

Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, which is a blog, not a magazine.

The Spears Family, without whom magazine editors would be desperate. Fun fact:

A Britney tabloid cover, on average, equals 1.28 million in newsstand sales; OK!'s Jamie Lynn scoop sent the magazine over the million mark for the first time.

Owen Van Natta and Jordan Hoffner, of YouTube, which is also not a magazine. They told magazine editors to give up on their own ideas for social networking:

Your audience already uses Facebook and YouTube and isn't going to migrate to your site.

Folio: also thinks that Eric Mika, SVP, Publishing Director, The Hollywood Reporter, is someone to watch.

Media Wire Daily called the list a "stroke job". Nice.

Natalie Zee Drieu, Sr. Editor at Craft, is very happy with her award, which is the right response.

Ian Parker succeedes where Joel Stein failed. In the New Yorker's 10 page celebrity profile, we learn that George Clooney sprays his salad with Balsamic Breeze:

a wonderfully balanced blend of bold balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil-all in an innovative spray bottle. Plus, there's just 1 calorie per spray!

And Clooney's got the hardware: electronic pepper grinder which doubles "as a marital aid."

And he's hot for fruit:

His refrigerator contained many individual servings of watermelon, in plastic tubs.

Stein had the guy over for dinner, and yet didn't enlighten us, the readers, with any of this vitally important information. Where are his editors? Where are the standards? Henry Luce is twirling in his grave.

I Want Media interviewed Brandon Holley editor in chief of Yahoo's 'it's not a magazine it's a chick site' Shine.

And in the interview she dangles a healthy low-carb carrot in front of potential bloggers:

IWM: Will Shine's bloggers be paid for their contributions?

Holley: If we find that they become a regular part of Shine, we would then establish some kind of longer-term association with them. If they became very, very popular, we would probably make them columnists. Nothing will happen for the first several months, because we sort of need to see how this comes out.

Recently, New York Observer ran a doom and gloom piece about the lack of freelance magazine writers. They're all blogging. Doree Shafrir reports that it's a harsh world out there:

For most established but not well-known writers, $2 per word at a major magazine is standard, though usually negotiable. So even if a fledgling magazine writer were to write one 1,500-word feature a month for a national magazine--which would in itself be a difficult feat to pull off--he or she would be pulling in $36,000 a year before taxes. That's also assuming that none of the stories were killed or held and that everyone paid on time.

Luckily, Alissa Walker, former Unbeige editor, posted the perfect rejoiner:

Now, I don't write one 1,500 feature a month. I write six or seven or eight stories a month, ranging from 300 to 2,000 words (and, ahem, I don't always get $2 a word). Even when I was a fledgling--which, I guess, I still am--I was writing more than 1,500 words a month. That meant pitching a helluva lot more stories than I actually landed. And yes, at first, with smaller magazines, hounding people to pay me. But selling 1,500 words a month? More than do-able for a new freelancer.

Hell yes.

Jessica Wakeman, with a day job at the HuffPo, believes in web only.

Jay Busbee says no one reads magazines anyway.

Debbi Mack has our favorite Dr. Johnson witticism as her tagline.

And Daily Intelligencer points out that blogging is a stepping stone to greater things, as Ms. Shafrir knows all too well.

It only matters because the stakes are so small.

We are so proud that all our favorites made it into the top 10! There's Perez Hilton, Eliot Spitzer, Spencer Pratt, Ryan Seacrest and Tom Cruise.

Where would we be without our punchlines?

Their press release states:

The Michael Kelly Award was created by Atlantic Media Company Chairman David G. Bradley after Kelly's death while covering the war in Iraq in 2003. Kelly had been editor of two Atlantic Media publications, The Atlantic and National Journal. The Michael Kelly Award is bestowed annually upon a journalist whose work exemplifies the fearless pursuit and expression of truth that animated Kelly's own career.

This year's finalists are:

•Kelly Kennedy, Army Times - for a series on an infantry regiment in Iraq hit hard by casualties.

•Joshua Kors, The Nation - for stories on the misdiagnosis of injured soldiers returning from Iraq.

•Blake Morrison, Peter Eisler, and Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today - for stories on the Pentagon's failure to respond to the problem of roadside bombs in Iraq.

•Loretta Tofani, Salt Lake Tribune - for a series on unsafe working conditions in China.

The winner of the $25,000 prize will be announced at a May 8 ceremony in Washington, DC.