Larry Flynt’s War

Famous Larry Flynt (Hustler Magazine) files a lawsuit against American Department of Defense because he wants his magazine to cover the war in Afghanistan..

Journalists sued the government over press access during the gulf war, and they’ve done so this time around, too. Last time it was The Nation, the liberal journal of opinion — on behalf of a number of publications and highbrow writers such as E.L. Doctorow and William Styron — charging that the military unfairly and unconstitutionally barred reporters from the battlefields. By the time the judge could rule, however, the war was over and the case was moot.

Now, a decade later, another conflict has exploded and another magazine has dragged the government into court. This time it is the porn publisher Larry Flynt who filed suit against Donald Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense in November for the right of Hustler correspondents to accompany American troops in Afghanistan.

Flynt is no stranger to seemingly insurmountable legal battles, however. He has weathered obscenity trials and other challenges to government censorship. He filed suit against the government in 1983 for prohibiting reporters from covering the initial stages of the United States-led invasion of Grenada. Flynt lost that suit, a case that unfortunately foreshadowed media coverage of this new war.

read an inteview with Larry Flynt here:

http://www.cjr.org/year/02/1/flynt.asp