LAT.com goes botox

Jacques Steinberg in the New York Times reports on the pitch received last week by 400,000 registered users of LATimes.com -- an invitation to click on an advertorial section espousing cosmetic surgery.

Those who follow a link to the supplement from the latimes.com home page will discover easy-to-follow guides, written not by journalists but practitioners, to procedures like botox injections (a segment sponsored by Marina Plastic Surgery Associates, according to the site), face lifts (courtesy of Dr. Michael S. Schwartz) and nose reshaping (Dr. Geoffrey R. Keyes of the Keyes Surgicenter.)

They will also find before-and-after photos of the breasts of a woman who has undergone augmentation, and illustrations of a man's genitalia being scanned using Doppler ultrasound. (That technique assesses erectile dysfunction).

"This is an interesting one for us,'' said Donna Stokley, director of advertising sales for latimes.com. "We've had a lot of internal meetings about the right level of appropriateness with the subject. We do want to present it in the most professional way we could.''

The pitch went to men 35 and over (and women 25+) making $50,000 or more a year -- at least, those whose registration at the site (truthful or not) put them in that category.