The item offered PR executives coverage for cosying up to readers, and was shockingly subtitled 'PR-ostitution' (Diary, 19 May). But editor Derek Harbinson - who joined Maxim last month - was having none of the controversial feature.
And he exclusively explained his reasons for axing it to PRWeek with a quite unexpected reference to Julia Hobsbawm's networking club for PROs and journalists: 'As an editor I take my pastoral role in staff care very seriously and thought if anyone was going to be snogging fit PR girls it should be single members of our own staff. It'll be like our version of Editorial Intelligence - except more fun.
'By the way, I've got girls on the staff here, too, and they'd like some good-looking PR boys sent round.'
Well, Harbinson did once work for Nuts.
