Lads’ mags in bags? PPA chief Barry McIlheney on why publishers should not accept censorship via retail

This was certainly the case when the Co-op’s PR team briefed media outlets late last Friday night that the publishers of Front, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo had until September 9 to supply these titles in "modesty bags" or it would choose not to stock them. As is often the case, however, there is much more to this story than the admittedly dramatic veneer.

The media feeding frenzy and associated shouting on social platforms duly ensued, but what is this story really all about? Why did the Co-op suddenly choose to make this announcement, without any prior consultation with publishers, about an item of stock that so readily ignites such heated public debate?

Well, let’s start by clarifying the issue at the heart of the matter and that, very simply, is how the covers of men’s lifestyle magazines should be displayed within retail outlets. Retailers are supported in this through a set of display guidelines that have been drawn up by various industry bodies from across the magazine supply chain, the PPA included. Endorsed by the Home Office, these guidelines clearly set out a series of measures for men’s lifestyle magazines so that they are displayed well away from children’s titles and at a height that means they are not in any child's eyeline.

They go on to state that retailers can also liaise with wholesalers to source opaque plastic covers, or modesty boards, should they require them for individual stores.

These existing measures have been supported by the major retail groups and, adhered to properly, provide a perfectly appropriate structure for retailers to display men’s lifestyle magazines in a responsible way. They provide for a retail environment that can accommodate legal, responsibly published titles targeted at adults without overtly exposing children to their front covers, which is exactly as it should be.

In this context, the Co-op’s direct and very public demand for "modesty bags" is difficult to comprehend. All the more so as it comes in the wake of heightened activity by feminist pressure group Lose the Lads Mags, whose narrative is less about the display of men’s lifestyle magazines – whether they are on the shelf, behind modesty covers, or within modesty bags - and more about banning these titles altogether. Full stop.

Their argument, unquestionably refuted by the publishers and by the PPA, is that these titles should be banned because of their content. This case has been laid at the door of retailers, who ultimately make the decision about what they stock and the manner in which it is displayed in-store. The public conversation, therefore, has quickly shifted away from whether retailers support already agreed responsible display measures and towards whether retailers support men’s lifestyle magazines at all – with the vocal minority of detractors coming through loud and clear.

Whatever one's personal view of these particular magazines, should we really accept this 'censorship via retail' approach? Yes, these titles certainly contain images aimed at adults but they are legal, published responsibly and, as with all magazines, they are created for, targeted at, and sold to a very specific readership. Are we as a nation now saying that adults should not be free to have the choice to access this content through acceptable routes of supply?

The fundamental point here has to be that we are a free society, with freedom of speech and the freedom to publish – all within specific parameters. And because we are granted these freedoms, there will then always be differences of opinion on matters of taste and decency. If Zoo and Nuts are banned from supermarkets because one group in society don't like what they see there, what's next? What matters above all else surely is the context, and the magazine industry in this case has clear existing guidelines which safeguard that contextual environment. Other media industries are the same - television has a watershed – yet I hear no call to ban programmes that, on the same basis as the current argument against men's magazines, could clearly be said to offend whole swathes of society.

Ultimately, of course, retailers are free to make commercial decisions on what they stock and how they sell it, but it should at least be clear what motivations underpin those decisions. Despite all the noise surrounding men’s lifestyle magazines in the last seven days, the key issue must always remain one of the context rather than the content.

Barry McIlheney is CEO of the PPA and the former editor of Smash Hits.