The Aussey edition of EMAP's mid-shelf mag FHM has been forced to pull its latest issue after it published images of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster with 'comedy captions'. The magazine will publish apologies in both the Aus and UK editions, even though the latter didn't publish the images. The magazine's publisher, will also make a donation to the fund that supports families of Hilsborough victims.
"FHM Australia has clearly acted without sensitivity and in a totally inappropriate manner," Geoff Campbell, publishing director of FHM Australia, which is published independently of the magazine's UK edition, told Media Guardian. "The right course of action is to withdraw this edition from sale, which we will be doing. We have been in contact with the Hillsborough family support group and the Hillsborough justice campaign to express our deep regret and our sincere apologies. We have informed them that a full apology will be published in the Australian edition due for circulation at the beginning of December. Although the offending article was not published in the UK, the apology will also appear in the UK edition, with similar timing."
But Philip Hammond, the secretary and vice-chairman of the Hillsborough family support group, is not impressed. "It's not good enough. Money doesn't make any difference. It should never have been done. It's a disaster the same as the twin towers or Bali." He added he would be recommending to the group's board that they call for a boycott of the magazine.
The offending FHM article compared crushed fans to shoppers battling to get into end of year sales and described victims of the crush, who were lying on the pitch, "lazy". EMAP have now instigated an editorial review across all of its 16 international editions to ensure a similar mistake does not occur in the future.