Jay Levin tilts at print mills

City magazines are glossy monthlies, usually with eponymous titles (New York, Boston, Tuscaloosa). They have traditionally found readers in educated new money, old money, and dental offices. Los Angeles already has one of these – not surprisingly called "Los Angeles."

Levin wanted something different for an audience he felt was being ignored: L.A.'s "fusion culture." Along with a growing black middle class, he identified educated, affluent second- and third-generation immigrants from three big populations – Latino, Asian, and Middle Eastern. What sets them apart from traditional city magazine readers, he believes, is their fluidity: They mix together professionally and socially more easily than previous generations.

But launching a new magazine requires more than identifying a demographic. Levin had to address the elephant in the print room – the Internet. In the decade and a half since he had sold the LA Weekly, the Internet had grown beyond even Al Gore's imagination. Pundit after pundit decreed that the "new media" would annihilate all forebears – TV, movies, radio, and print. Especially print.

Even a temperate voice like Robert Niles, editor of University of Southern California's Annenberg Online Journalism Review, says that the media landscape today is "brutally competitive." He cuts to the heart of the struggle: "There are literally millions of new Web publications chasing a finite amount of advertising dollars."

Levin's biggest challenge would be to find funding and figure out how to fuse print and the Web. "Print is suffering in certain areas," Levin admits. "But publications targeted to more prosperous segments of the population are doing well. [Los Angeles] magazine had its best year ever."

Levin began by approaching the usual suspects – corporations. But big money is cautious money. Eventually, he persuaded several individuals to invest.

Now all he had to do was come up with a magazine and, of course, its website, which, depending on whom you talked to, would either complement or drive the publication. Levin set up headquarters in an industrial area just outside downtown L.A.: The office was a cinder-block island surrounded by metal fabricators, seafood processing plants, and, most arrestingly, stretches of open space.

He brought in Judi Jordan from Latin Style magazine to be the editor. With a background in arts and fashion design, she brought, well, style to Levin's political activism. And with a heritage that was Latino, African-American, Jamaican, and native American, she embodied fusion culture.

For the website, Levin hired Sridhar Rao, a second-generation Indian from Maryland who was rooted in the dotcom world. For months, Levin and staff toiled on articles, photos, marketing, and ad sales. Finally, the first weekend of this May, the première issue hit the streets, and the website went online.

Time for celebrating? Not quite.

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A media-watch website, LA Observed, reported shortly after the magazine debuted that it was in trouble. It said RealTALK hadn't met its payroll and was closing – a claim Levin denied vigorously the next day. But in a subsequent interview, he acknowledged that there were financial problems, calling the situation "anoma-lous" and saying that they were "restructuring."

The early woes are a reminder of just how turbulent the magazine publishing world is today. Mr. Niles asserts that there needs to be a new model for magazine/Internet publications. But no one has found it yet. "You can't just go out and copy someone," he says.

RealTALK, meantime, is about to come out with its second issue – in July instead of on the normal publishing schedule in June. Talk persists outside the magazine of a short life. But Levin, a survivor and dreamer, remains optimistic. "We've got challenges," he says of the magazine's long-term prognosis on a late Friday afternoon." But we'll make it through. We'll be successful."

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