I dunno about that. I guess it depends on who you expect to reach with the paper. I notice that whenever I'm in a coffeeshop, the free papers are always left-of-center, if not outright goofy. But the successful ones - Seattle Weekly & The Stranger - have much more content than just the strident columns & articles.
I see the reviews, ads, concert listings, non-political articles, etc., as "intellectual loss-leaders". They get the average reader to read the paper, and hopefully come to rely on it over time. How many people would seek out a purely "eat your peas" style conservative paper? Besides you & me, I mean? :-)
Also, as I understand it, by far the biggest moneymakers for these papers are the Personal ads. Now, the seXXXy ads would be completely inappropriate for this paper, but still, I gotta wonder where the ad revenue would come from for a publication of strictly political articles. Check out National Review, Reason, The Nation, etc. & see the miniscule space that's given over to ads, and you begin to understand why these kinds of publications are always subsidized by a nonprofit organization that solicits donations.
I'd like to see a newsmagazine have articles on the arts, on sports, on business - lots of things that aren't strictly political or philosophical, and yet would be written by people with a conservative (or ideally for me, Objectivist) point of view. They wouldn't critique the latest art museum show or movie release on how well it conforms to conservative principles, necessarily, but the writer's conservatism would certainly show through over time.
Also: What demographic do the Weekly & the Stranger target? I'd say it's twentysomething liberal-arts college educated gen X'ers & boomers. For a conservative paper I think I'd target younger working people & entrepreneurs. Perhaps a slightly older demographic, but maybe not. But people who actually have dreams of making it in the capitalist world. So for a start, I'd like to see more articles on business. Even articles focusing on specific businesses, or specific careers. There are lots of businesses, market niches, and careers that I've idly wondered about. There was an article recently about people who rent out industrial kitchen space for food entrepreneurs. Fascinating stuff! I had practically no idea such space was available, let alone get a ballpark understanding of how much it would cost to make my gourmet salsa, blackberry jammy, apple jammy, or (your homemade food here) & sell it.
Anyway, I wouldn't dismiss non-political stories out of hand as "fluff". Unless you want to strictly target the publication to policy wonks or wonk-wannabees.