Former
Loaded editor Scott Manson, who once projected a giant image of model
Kelly Brook onto the side of MI5 headquarters, will take the helm at
British Airways magazine High Life.
The 34-year-old, who left
Loaded in August 2003 and is currently working as a consultant at
contract publisher Square One, has been hired to take the magazine “to
the next level”.
Former editor Alex Finer left the mag in July
last year, apparently over professional differences about the direction
of the title.
Manson told Press Gazette that the days of “making
a berk” of himself with Loaded-style stunts were over, but prom-ised
that some of the lad mag’s “style and paciness” would be apparent in
future issues of High Life.
He added: “What I’m doing with High Life is somewhere between a tweak and an overhaul.
“It is already an incredibly good mag, I just want to make it a bit more modern, a bit more useful, just update it a bit.
“There’ll be more getting stuck in.
For
example, if a High Life reporter is in India and sees a load of
elephants going up a country road, I’d rather he was on the back of
those elephants.”
Mark Jones, editorial director at High Life
publisher Cedar, said: “Scott is a real grown-up in the magazine world
– but he’s still got plenty of cheek and energy. That’s important to
us.”We want High Life to be a world away from the bland reading
material that’s served up by some airlines.”
Manson, who was also editor of dance mag Ministry, will be only the fourth editor in 32 years at High Life.
While
at Square One he worked on Gala Casino’s Player magazine among other
projects, which he said gave him the opportunity to hone his poker game.
Andrena Pullen, British Airways’
publishing manager, said “We were hugely impressed by Scott’s enthusiasm.
“We’re excited he’s joining and we’re looking forward to taking High Life to the next level.”
High Life is distributed free to nearly 200,000 British Airways passengers.
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