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Christopher Gialanella: Los Angeles Magazine Publisher
- Ariel Lavi
- 27 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Christopher Gialanella understands a secret that most of Los Angeles has forgotten: there is a specific gravity to ink on paper. In a town obsessed with the next glowing screen, the real heavy lifting happens in the quiet corners of publishing. It takes a certain kind of dedication to champion stories that lift neighborhoods up, skipping the cheap tabloids entirely. Finding professionals who truly get this obsession is rare, and Gialanella is the guy leading the charge.
When the media group led by Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas bought Los Angeles Magazine, the local whisper network swore Chris bought it himself. The reality is actually much better. The new owners saw a leader and a guy who led by example and tapped Chris as President and Publisher for Engine Vision Media’s Los Angeles, Orange Coast, and Pasadena Magazines, which was the smartest move on the board.
A sharp, direct energy from his New Jersey roots translates directly to the West Coast. The art of the hustle was learned early, entirely by accident, thanks to his grandmother, Esther. When a local congressman waved from a parade float, she ran right into the street, stopped him in his tracks, and demanded an internship for her grandson. It worked. That same fearless energy fueled his move to California, where he cut his teeth doing PR and passing around coveted movie screeners, famously crashing at the home of Ian Ziering right at the absolute peak of the Beverly Hills 90210 television craze.
Eventually, his fiancée - now his wife - brought home a copy of a beautiful local publication. After looking it over, Chris picked up the phone and called the founder of Modern Luxury directly. Despite having zero magazine experience, he offered a bold deal: give him a desk and pay him strictly on commission. The result was a staggering fifty grand in ads sold for his very first issue. This success came from treating sales like a first date - asking questions, listening intently, and believing blindly in the power of a face-to-face meeting. In a town run on text messages, Chris still requires absolute punctuality and writes handwritten thank-you notes.
That genuine curiosity is his secret weapon. Regular appearances on CBS and Fox allow him to highlight local stories, and he covers the Golden Globes and Oscars red carpets with the exact same approachability he uses with the cashier at the grocery store. Everyone is seen as simply human in his eyes. Granted, he admits to completely freezing up and asking for a wildly awkward selfie when he met Robert De Niro, but that only makes him more relatable. Understanding that the guy ordering a drink in Pasadena is having a completely different conversation than the woman relaxing by a pool here in the Hollywood Hills, he refuses to treat our coast like one giant blur.
His connection to the community goes far beyond gloss and glamour. When devastating fires ripped through the local canyons, Chris did not simply print a tribute issue. He opened a massive donation center in Marina del Rey, personally handing out socks and blankets to families who had lost absolutely everything. He orchestrated comedy shows to raise relief funds, proving that a publication should act as the actual heartbeat of a city.