Man Hunting for News

Wed, 30 Nov 2011

What tabloids and paparazzi can do for a good story

The News of the World (NoW) scandal is still on top of the news in the UK and it is expected to stay there for as long as the Leveson inquiry continues.

Named after the Lord Justice Leveson, who is heading the process, the inquiry was set up immediately after it became known that reporters and editors from Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper were involved in a phone-hacking scandal that, according to police reports, may have included up to 4,000 people.

No one, it seems, escaped from their list: Artists, sports stars, politicians, even crime victims’ phones were allegedly hacked, giving reporters access to private information which was deemed precious for their stories and exclusive articles.

Apart from examining the details of the NoW scandal, which apparently involves more than just that one newspaper, the Leveson inquiry has a more generic purpose attached to it. It is not only about the scandal, but about the general practices of the press, its relations with politicians and whether the current regulatory system in the country is enough, or whether there is some need for improvements.

In this context, it not simply an inquiry about illegal actions but also about the ethical grounds of journalistic practices and especially of the scandal-mongering tabloids for which Britain is infamous.

With actor Hugh Grant, actress Sienna Miller and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling among those who have already testified or are due to testify in the weeks to come, the Leveson inquiry opens up the ‘black box’ of aggressive journalism and allows to take a look at the, sometimes, scary side effects of being under the spotlight.

Rowling’s account of being besieged in her house by photographers for almost a week after the birth of her son is a powerful example of how aggressive tabloids can become, when they feel they have put their hands on a good story. In another instance, one paparazzo did not hesitate to put a message in her daughter’s school bag.

Such practices border on the limits of legality and are well beyond the limits of what any reasonable person could endure at a daily basis.

In other circumstances, paparazzi have become even more aggressive, as in the case of actress Sienna Miller who testified that she was spat upon by a tabloid photographer. Commenting on the issue of legality Miller made a telling remark:

“When I was 21 I found myself, at midnight, running down on a dark street on my own with ten big men chasing me. And the fact that they had cameras in their hands made it legal. But take away the cameras and what have you got? A pack of men chasing a woman and, obviously, that is a very intimidating situation to be in”.

Those who are chased may call it intimidation but for the hunters it is just another job.

Tabloids and paparazzi are not having a hard time justifying their actions to themselves. It is not out of some perverted sense of amusement that they hunt celebrities in dark alleys, they say. If the public was not interested in them, if there was no demand for them, this kind of journalism would be immediately out of business.

But can we really blame the public for their inexorable appetite for celebrity news and photos? Aren’t celebrities using the media, whenever it suits them, to create an image for themselves that sets them apart from ordinary people? Isn’t it only reasonable that, as a result the public wants more and more pictures of their everyday routines? “You can’t have your media cake and eat it too”!

But just how big is the demand for celebrity news and photos? In the UK, tabloids such as the Sun outsell the ‘serious’ newspapers by almost two million copies a day. In Germany, the Bild newspaper is by far the best selling paper nationwide. In the States, celebrity magazines such as People are among the best selling titles in the country. Television shows and internet sites are also flooded with celebrity news.

The price for a paparazzo photograph is not bad either. An exclusive photograph can fetch up to a couple of hundred dollars, especially if the subject and the content are intriguing. A picture of actor Brad Pitt and fellow-actress and spouse Angelina Jolie on a beach, when their relationship was only just a rumour, is said to have been sold for around $300,000.

What tabloids can ask and what paparazzi can do for that amount of money is virtually unlimited. The original Paparazzo, the talkative and cunning journalist in Federico Fellini’s Dolce Vita, from whom all later paparazzi got their name, would be thrilled to find out what rewards he could harness for a picture of Anita Ekberg’s contemporary colleagues.

In the time Fellini was shooting his film, a paparazzo in Rome could get up to $500 for a photo of Gina Lollobrigida, Sofia Lauren or Jane Mansfield.

With great demand, however, came great supply. Today, every tabloid employs its own photographers to do the job and only partly rests on freelancers. Unique photographs are in a shortage and so too, are the really exclusive stories behind them.

For the NoW staff the solution to the problem was right before their eyes, or rather, before their ears. Eavesdropping on other people’s voice mails could supply them with all the stories they needed.

The illegality of these actions was so obvious, this time, that the newspaper was shut down and the Murdoch family was left without words. But the British government did well to realise that there was a more to it than just that. As Miller aptly put it, there are times when holding a camera can justify actions which would otherwise be unjustifiable.

With Princess Diana dying inside a Parisian Tunnel in a crazy escape ride away from photographers, the British should know that all too well, by now.

by Alexis Charitos