Whoa now, magazines are fighting dirty! Advertising is scarce. Magazines have that hungry look. The rules are gone. So one title (Update: or someone pretending to be) is telling advertisers a competitor's folding. HARDCORE!

Bucky Turco got hold of this memo that hip hop mag XXL sent out to media planning agency Mindshare, which essentially says: Giant magazine is on the verge of folding, so don't waste your money there. Advertise with us instead. This is a serious breach of, you know, etiquette, which these days means a lot less than it did when there was enough money to go around. Highlight:

Unfortunately, Giant will fold in the near future like King and Blender. So I implore you to take a hard look at your print partners and invest with those that are credible, viable, proven, and trusted. Please select brands like XXL that are investing in their product and platform.

Thanks for that! Look out for the memo from Giant about how they felt that they had to tell you, as a friend, that XXL has crabs, so watch out.

Update: And it gets even HARDCORE-er! XXL publisher Dennis Page says he didn't send out this letter. But he thinks one of his competitors might have.

I saw your post about the Giant memo and want to let you know that this did
not come from anyone on my staff. You are right that magazines are facing a
challenging environment however it is not our style to spread malicious
rumors about competitors. I have spoken to every member of my staff and no one
sent this letter. My guess is that it came from one of our competitors, believe
it or not. I have been publishing magazines for over 25 years, and I have never
seen this stunt pulled. Pretty tasteless. We are reaching out to Mindshare and Bucky
Turco to see if they can tell us the source.

[Animal NY. Honestly, XXL is probably accurate.]