Éanna
21/10/2002, 2:18 PM
football365.com (http://www.football365.com/All_News/Breaking_News/story_44371.shtml)
The editor of the Australian edition of men’s magazine FHM has been forced to issue an apology to Liverpool fans after they printed a series of sick jokes about Hillsborough.
Under pictures depicting the 1989 tragedy that claimed 96 lives, they printed supposedly funny captions that are worse than tasteless.
Liverpool fans in Australia were understandably distressed after reading the offending words in the piece entitled ‘World of Disasters’ and after receiving many e-mails on the subject, editor John Bastick issued an apology.
But the question remains of how the words were allowed to reach the printed page.
Under a photograph of hundreds of Liverpool fans being crushed against a steel mesh fence, they wrote the words: “Shoppers waited for the doors to open for the end-of-year sale.”
Under a photograph of a man with his hands on the cheeks of another man in distress are the words: “Yeah, your glands are really swollen.”
Another photograph of the Anfield Wall of Remembrance shows a mother and child pointing at the names and the caption reads: “Level four, lingerie and kids wear.”
Under a fourth photograph of people lifting fellow-fans into the upper tier are the words: “Get us a beer while you’re there.”
Alongside a picture of victims laid out on advertising hoardings are the words: “Pitch invaders: lazy.”
And another photograph of the crush was accompanied by the words: “The queue for the Bertie Beetle bag was rough.”
The volley of complaints to the editor of FHM Australia gave him no option but to issue an e-mail apology to all who had been offended by the captions.
He issues his ‘sincere apologies and deep condolences’ to all Liverpool fans and draws a comparison with the bomb attacks in Bali that have claimed so many Australian lives.
But his apology could fall short of preventing a boycott of FHM along the lines of the boycott of The Sun that followed their tasteless and inaccurate reporting of the Hillsborough tragedy.
The editor of the Australian edition of men’s magazine FHM has been forced to issue an apology to Liverpool fans after they printed a series of sick jokes about Hillsborough.
Under pictures depicting the 1989 tragedy that claimed 96 lives, they printed supposedly funny captions that are worse than tasteless.
Liverpool fans in Australia were understandably distressed after reading the offending words in the piece entitled ‘World of Disasters’ and after receiving many e-mails on the subject, editor John Bastick issued an apology.
But the question remains of how the words were allowed to reach the printed page.
Under a photograph of hundreds of Liverpool fans being crushed against a steel mesh fence, they wrote the words: “Shoppers waited for the doors to open for the end-of-year sale.”
Under a photograph of a man with his hands on the cheeks of another man in distress are the words: “Yeah, your glands are really swollen.”
Another photograph of the Anfield Wall of Remembrance shows a mother and child pointing at the names and the caption reads: “Level four, lingerie and kids wear.”
Under a fourth photograph of people lifting fellow-fans into the upper tier are the words: “Get us a beer while you’re there.”
Alongside a picture of victims laid out on advertising hoardings are the words: “Pitch invaders: lazy.”
And another photograph of the crush was accompanied by the words: “The queue for the Bertie Beetle bag was rough.”
The volley of complaints to the editor of FHM Australia gave him no option but to issue an e-mail apology to all who had been offended by the captions.
He issues his ‘sincere apologies and deep condolences’ to all Liverpool fans and draws a comparison with the bomb attacks in Bali that have claimed so many Australian lives.
But his apology could fall short of preventing a boycott of FHM along the lines of the boycott of The Sun that followed their tasteless and inaccurate reporting of the Hillsborough tragedy.