Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

The attempted publication of some very racy material led the Mobile Press-Register’s publisher to order a reprinting of the latest issue of its “alternative” newspaper Current last week.

According to Press-Register employees speaking on condition of anonymity, the May 24 issue of Current had to be reprinted to recrop a photo of a man with his hand on a woman’s crotch, and to censor the “f-word” in an article about a prostitute who stars in the HBO series “Cathouse.” The decidedly racier issue of Current also featured an article titled “The Assman Cometh,” in which the writer talks about his love of the female derriere. On the cover of Current, the story is previewed as “A Salute to Ass.”

The racy nature of the copy apparently led some at the Press-Register to try and distance themselves from their new publication, now in its fourth month of printing. On the reprint, executive director Larry Wooley’s name was removed from the masthead on page 2, as was information describing Current as a division of the Press-Register. Wooley is head of advertising for the Press-Register.

The reprinted version lists Current Publications general manager Michael Rossetti at the top of the masthead and says only that “Current is published weekly by Current Publications.”

According to a P-R employee, Current was finishing up printing in the Press-Register building when someone in the newspaper’s management pulled out a copy and read it. An article entitled “A business doing pleasure” appeared to present the biggest problems. Listed as one of a two-part series, the article is an interview with Brooke Taylor, a real-life prostitute who stars in HBO’s “Cathouse.” One of the changes made was Taylor’s use of the dreaded f-word, spelled out in the original Current, but sanitized with dashes in the second printing.

The biggest change in the story was in an accompanying photo, where Steve-O of “Jackass” fame is shown with this finger sliding into the crotch under Taylor’s skirt in the original Current. That photo was cropped in the second printing to omit a view of where Steve-O’s hand was placed.

Lagniappe was able to obtain a copy of the original version of Current that didn’t make it onto city streets, and can verify the changes described by Press-Register insiders. P-R sources also said it was Wooley who demanded his name be removed from Current’s masthead, although calls to both Wooley and Rossetti went unreturned.

Even the Current Publications logo, which ran on page 2, was changed to remove “a division of the Press-Register,” which appeared in the original.

When it was started in February, Current was touted as a publication that would cater to “all things local.” However, recent issues seem to be veering away from that notion, with Spiderman and pop singer Fergie both gracing recent covers. It was hard to say if the recent salacious turn hurt distribution of the paper, although a strictly unscientific perusal of downtown and Midtown Mobile revealed none of the new Currents being delivered in the Press-Register’s large, yellow boxes that usually house the daily paper along with Current, ‘Zalea and Bay Family. Current seems primarily to have been distributed this time in the plain black boxes owned by the Press-Register.

One P-R employee groused this week that the racy issue had created a “stir” in the daily’s newsroom, and others have complained that the company is wasting money on its “niche” publications while cutting the daily’s news budget.

In the May 31 issue of Currnent, the second part of Taylor’s interview ran but none of the information linking the Current to the Press-Register appeared.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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