Hustler’s position is that while we believe we have every right to the crime scene photos involving the murder of Meredith Emerson, out of consideration for the family, we will not pursue their release.

We note that we have been doing true crime stories with crime scene pix for a number of years. We do not publish the pix for any perverse sexual reasons. We publish them because they help us communicate the horror of the story. The pix are information, no different in that regard than the text. Hustler has always prided itself on not holding back; we tell it like it is. Other examples of this approach can be found in articles we’ve run on the use of depleted uranium in Iraq (which featured pix of children born horribly deformed) and our article on sexually transmitted diseases (which featured pix of diseased genitals). To suggest that we ran any of these pix for sexual titillation is insane. In any case, it says more about the accuser than us.

Our philosophy regarding Hustler has always been to make the reader feel something. Hopefully they will laugh at the cartoons and be aroused by the girl sets. But we believe shock, horror and revulsion should be a part of that mix. It’s called hard hitting journalism.

Bruce David
Editorial Director
HUSTLER

Tags: Meredith Emerson

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Larry's Statements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.