Hands off Cosmo: ASME

The American Society of Magazine Editors has once again rallied to the defense of Cosmopolitan, which has been under fire by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and Hearst heiress Victoria Hearst, over its sexy covers and content in Cosmpolitan.

Walmart said last week it will ban the magazine from display at its checkout counters and move it to less visible racks where the suddenly hot topic will be comparatively out of sight.

“Whether the source is Bentonville or Washington, the target Cosmopolitan or American Rifleman [magazine], ASME opposes any attempt to muffle free speech,” said Sid Holt, chief executive of the industry group, which counts most of the nation’s glitzy consumer magazine publishers as members.

Pressure from the NCOSE and a recent radio blitz by Victoria Hearst on conservative talk radio in Arkansas pushed Walmart, head- quartered in Bentonville, Ark., to ban the magazine from its checkout counters.

Victoria Hearst, a born-again Christian whose grandfather, William Randolph Hearst, started the publishing company, thanked “the Lord Jesus Christ” for helping to bring about the checkout counter banishment.

Hearst had been sponsoring billboards placed in Salt Lake City and in Memphis and Nashville, Tenn., claiming “Cosmopolitan Magazine Contains Porn,” which she said is harmful to kids.

NCOSE, which plans to honor Walmart executives at its annual convention this week, saw Walmart’s heightened awareness as another dividend of the #MeToo movement.

“If the self-proclaimed moral guardians of NCOSE are truly interested in joining the struggle for gender equality, they should respect, rather than attempt to regulate, the right of all Americans to read what they want,” said ASME’s Holt.