US-MEDIA: How to Control the Paparazzi

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Marvette Darien

NEW YORK, Sep 2 1997 (IPS) - Public outrage over sensationalism in journalism – and especially against celebrity-hunting ‘paparazzi’ – is at a peak after the death of Princess Diana of Wales, but U.S. media analysts say change is unlikely in the way mass media works.

The possibility of new legislation being enacted to protect people’s privacy from prying photographers and other celebrity- watchers is “extremely remote,” said Todd Gitlin, a professor at New York University who has written extensively about journalism and culture.

Despite public anger that Diana and her companion, Emad ‘Dodi’ al-Fayed, were killed in a car crash in Paris Saturday while fleeing a group of freelance photographers, media critics doubt that most countries will change their existing press laws. The chauffeur of the car driving the couple, Henry Paul – who is alleged to have drunk three times in excess of the French legal limit of alcohol for the driver of a vehicle – was also killed.

Gitlin argued that, in the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution is sufficiently potent to strike a balance between privacy rights and the public’s right to information.

Others were equally unequivocal. “I think it would be a mistake to pass laws to stop photographers from taking pictures of people in public,” asserted Jim Naureckas, editor of ‘Extra!’, the bimonthly magazine of the media watchdog organisation, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

Naureckas said that, to protect the privacy rights of celebrities like Princess Diana, existing laws governing trepassing should be enforced.

“Certainly there are times when the press is fulfilling its role by taking pictures of people in public,” he told IPS. “It is not the function of the law to distinguish between good and bad journalism.” But media analysts see a further decline in the credibility of the press in the wake of Diana’s death and the popular perception of the role of paparazzi.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is growing hostility or greater hostility to intrusive papers,” said Gitlin, who added that tabloids could face public outrage. “The press has been on a slippery slope of declining credibility and this (the reports of the accident) will accelerate it.”

Ben Bagdikian, media analyst and author of ‘The Media Monopoly’, noted that a significant body of journalists and editors have also been increasingly critical of newspapers that hound celebrities and that present gossip as serious news. The present furor over privacy and the rights of the press will strengthen the arguments of those who have maintained that tabloids and the mainstream press have gone too far in their coverage of celebrities, he said.

“When celebrity news proliferates, the standard press begins to lose support,” Bagdikian argued, while acknowledging that there is a large audience for sensationalist media coverage. But he added that a larger audience exists that depends on televison and newspapers for “serious” news.

“Editors who defend tabloid journalism undermine the seriousness with which the public will defend freedom of the press,” Bagdikian contended. “If too much of the press is associated with trivial celebrity news, then the public won’t mind if freedom of the press is restricted.”

The press also faces the danger of losing some of its best minds because of the current exaggerated emphasis on celebrity news, Bagdikian argued, noting recent statistical studies which suggest that many serious reporters are leaving the profession because of the accent on celebrity-based news. “If reporters are rewarded for doing celebrity stories, then the press will attract more superficial journalists,” he said.

Some of the current onus against the media is undeserved, Gitlin said. “Many of the people who blame the press are fascinated by the stories,” he argued, referring to the virtually non-stop coverage of Diana’s death. “It is easy to demonise the bringers of the images.”

Naureckas, who contends that too much blame is being placed on the press, said that the public should think of where the photographs that they enjoy come from, and how they are produced.

“It’s true that photographers who cover celebrities often invade their privacy, but that is not a rationale for endangering people’s lives by reckless driving,” he said, noting reports that Paul was both drunk and driving the car at a high speed when it crashed into a tunnel crossing the Seine River.

If the press is to blame, some media figures have argued, it is because they are seeking to fill the growing demand for sensational news.

“At moments of great loss like these, people look for someone to blame, and many will turn to the press,” said Roy Greenslade, the former editor of London’s Daily Mirror. “But everyone ought to examine their motives, because this market for this kind of news was created and was so large only because millions of people bought the newspapers that carried it.”

Greenslade doubted that new privacy laws would help, noting that France had one of the world’s strictest privacy laws but had offered Diana no protection against the paparazzi.