From CBS News
Larry Flynt’s Latest Gamble
Anyone who knows the name Larry Flynt is likely to remember the 1978 shooting that left him paralyzed. And many have long since formed an opinion of the man — and of the magazine he created that made him famous (some would say notorious). Erin Moriarty of “48 Hours” now with a Sunday Profile:
Offensive. Obnoxious. Outrageous. These are just some of the adjectives that come to mind when describing Larry Flynt and Hustler, the magazine he began publishing forty years ago.
But now, how about . . . obsolete?
At the height of Hustler’s popularity, Flynt says circulation was three million per month. And now? “Well,” he said, “now about 100,000.”
Today, with the Internet, anybody can be a pornographer. Technology, it seems, has accomplished what religious leaders and prosecutors never could: the demise of Hustler magazine.
“Would it be very difficult for you, since you made your name off Hustler magazine, to have to shutter it, to actually stop publishing it?” Moriarty asked.
“I treat Hustler the same way as I would if it was a jar of peanut butter or a can of green beans,” Flynt replied. “You know, it’s a product, and when you are not making money, you’ve got to move on.”
