The Advocate started out as a mimeographed newsletter informing L.A. denizens of the latest LGBT happenings, but has grown into an international glossy. And its heavily-trafficked website is a great place for new writers to start pitching.

Advocate.com garners a million uniques a month, and just like the print version, is always on the lookout for features, profiles, commentary and analysis that speak to the gay and lesbian community.

“We’re really the only magazine in the space. There are lesbian-specific publications, there are trans-specific publications, there are gay men-specific publications,” said editor-in-chief Matthew Breen, “but in terms of an LGBT magazine, we really don’t have competitors.”

Find out which sections editors need ideas for in How To Pitch: The Advocate. [subscription required]

With the end of the year upon us (almost) we’re girding ourselves against the inevitable onslaught of top ten end-of-the-year lists.

But we were unprepared for the sheer number of lists Time magazine has pumped out for the end of the year.

One of our favorites is their top ten magazine covers of 2009. Their list? Two New York magazine covers (including Bernie Madoff as The Joker) and two New Yorker covers, Texas Monthly and The Advocate, among others.

Another list that caught our attention is Time‘s top 10 relevant comics about 2009′s political and social issues, including Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a Newsday number about Iranian Twitter users, and yes, even a Jon & Kate joke from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. View them all here.

The Top Ten Everything of 2009 –Time

–Additional reporting by Drew Grant

Here Media, which publishes The Advocate and Out today announced that it was promoting Jon Barrett, editor-in-chief of The Advocate and Advocate.com, to editorial director of the newly created Advocate Group, which will now oversee all of the magazine’s print, online and TV content as well other Here Media brands such as SheWired.com and PlanetOut.com.

The announcement comes just a few weeks after Here CEO Paul Colichman announced plans to bundle The Advocate‘s print magazine with Out for subscribers.

In his new position, Barrett will be in charge of growing the Advocate brand, an undertaking that includes oversight of an upcoming hour-long television magazine series aimed at the brand’s LGBT audience. Before joining The Advocate, Barrett worked as features editor for O magazine spin-off O at Home and served as senior editor at Cargo and Real Simple.

Full release after the jump

Previously: Publisher Plans To Bundle Out With The Advocate For Subscribers

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Here Media CEO Paul Colichman laid out a new marketing plan for his company’s gay publications The Advocate and Out, in a recent letter to readers.

After revealing that four members of The Advocate‘s editorial team were let go in order to make room for new staffers who can work across Here Media’s many platforms — print, online and broadcast TV — Colichman announced a new plan to send The Advocate‘s subscribers a copy of Out every month as well:

“The recent closures of Gourmet, Portfolio, Genre, and other magazines have shown the weaknesses of the print publication model. The rising costs of paper, printing, and postage have become a major problem. Therefore, we plan to greatly reduce these costs by jointly marketing The Advocate and Out magazines. We will fulfill Advocate subscriptions via joint delivery with Out. Advocate subscribers will continue to receive their monthly magazine along with a copy of Out at no extra charge. This move will also allow us to continue to offer Out at affordable subscription prices, either as a stand-alone title or with the choice to receive The Advocate as well. The strategy preserves our ability to deliver the same high-quality print magazines while allocating additional resources to editorial content.”

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The latest magazine to report layoffs is the gay and lesbian magazine The Advocate.

Mediaweek reports that the magazine laid off a handful of editorial and production staffers last week as it consolidates in the face of economic challenges.

Know anything else? Send us an email.

Layoffs Reach the Advocate–Mediaweek