The law currently allows public figures to be followed in public, photographed at any time, and IMHO harassed in order to feed the public’s desire for information. I don’t think anybody should have to put up with a media crush. Nobody should be afraid to leave their house, or unable to leave because the press has taken over their neighborhood. I don’t think public figures can have all the privacy of everyday citizens, and everybody has to live with the fact that they can be seen in public, but there has to be something short of losing all rights to privacy when a person becomes a figure of public interest.
Just evaluating the recent story about some Prince and his wife is difficult to evaluate because the paparazzi following them around have done so legally, yet it seems to me that the extreme circumstances involved here, when a police escort was needed for them to travel freely, then freedom of the press is just being used as an excuse to harass people.
Is equating “Media” and “Paparazzi” the wise call? “Media” already gets a bad rap from Republicans who can’t get enough of their buzzwords, dogwhistles and propaganda. Was NBC following Harry and Megan that night? PBS?
It does matter, because Republicans have been waging war on The Media for years now, and it’s sticking. Casual use of the term should be considered wisely.
It wouldn’t bother me if a mod were to change the thread title from “Media” to “Fucking Paparazzi”.
Judging from the covers of People and similar magazines I see at the supermarket checkout, there are plenty of celebrities who enjoy attention and notoriety, and leverage it as best they can to maintain their public image and score TV/movie roles, book contracts, interviews etc.
On the other hand there are numerous celebs who seem to succeed in keeping a relatively low profile (yes, I can see the irony in stories like that), who live in smaller/more rural communities and are not constantly dashing from galas to awards banquets in major cities.
I suppose you could make the case that everyone is entitled to be left alone no matter how flashy their lifestyle, but it’s difficult to see how that can be achieved in a world with decentralized media, cellphones, security cameras and omnipresent social media.*
Enough has been said elsewhere about Harry and Meghan and their World Privacy Tour that there’s no need to recapitulate their highly public angst.
*Speaking of irony, there’ve been countless examples of people wringing their hands about the cruelty of social media, where poor innocent public figures and even common folk say one wrong thing and are harassed, castigated and wind up with a severe case of career blowout. There are cases where things obviously went too far, but it’s remarkable how often public figures bitch and moan about how nastily they’re treated on social media, when the answer is: stay the hell off social media. Don’t check in on your Twitter account ten times a day. Let it go.
Do you have a suggested solution? I can’t think of one that wouldn’t be worse for society as a whole than the current situation.
Does it change your point of view any to consider that “some prince and his wife” are media whores, who want a lot of attention but only on their own terms? And that they almost certainly exaggerated the difficulty of their little trip in the big city for the sake of (oh, the irony) media coverage?
How about if anyone can send any media outlet a cease and desist letter regarding the use of photos taken after the current date? Or can identify harassing photographers and tell them that they are no longer welcome to take my picture and sell that picture for profit if I am recognizable or identified?
It’s like trespass, you’re allowed to do what you want, until you become a nuisance, at which point the person you’re annoying can tell you to eff off.
This is the crux of the matter. What restriction on press freedom do you (OP) envision that would not inevitably be abused? Bad actors already characterize any scrutiny of their bad acts as “media harassment”.
If paparazzi are actually endangering people by pursuing them in car chases, we already have laws against doing that.
New York appears to have laws against harassment that might apply, but California has a more specific set of laws aimed at paparazzi. Other sources say nobody pays much attention to the laws but they could be a base for other states. Hawaii proposed one in 2013 but it died in their House.
Society is the blame. If there weren’t such a huge paying market for these photos there wouldn’t be incentive for photographers to go to huge extra lengths to get them. Sure, a swarm of people behaving the way the worst paparazzi scenes become is repugnant, and potentially dangerous. I can’t figure out where to draw the line. No more than three photographers to any celebrity sighting? Allow going to extra lengths but not huge extra lengths? Ban People and TMZ?
Better minds than mine have been working on anti-paparazzi laws for a quarter-century, since Diana. No progress.
OTOH, We’re already passing a million laws that are obviously unconstitutional, so why not another one for a better purpose?
Not exactly. I have seen, with my own eyes, signs all over Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles (where lots of celebrities go) which state “taking photographs is strictly prohibited.” Unless you don’t consider a hospital a public place.
Surely it’s not, not in the way that a “public space” is defined for the right to take photos. Does anyone really believe that they have some right to wander around a hospital taking photos that overrides the right of patients to privacy?
Even if it is a “public place” ( and parts of it certainly are) the owner of that place prohibiting taking photos ( and presumably removing violators from the premises) is very different from the law prohibiting photos from being taken in the streets, and either arresting or issuing summonses to violators.
I agree, but I think we probably disagree quite a bit on what constitutes a “public figure” - to me, that’s politicians, police, that kind of thing. Like I said, I’d also make blanket exceptions for, say, judicial participants and attendees at certain well-advertised public locations and events.
Entertainment figures, on the other hand, should only be considered of public interest while “on the job”, so to speak. While at actual press events.
I would argue that H&M are more the latter than the former.
Seen, sure, no quibble. Images taken and sold, not so much.
Yes. Why does the flashiness of the lifestyle constitute an open license for abuse?
And that is where the hammer should fall first - crippling legal actions on the gossip rags. Not bans, but make violations of privacy really, really costly. That Rupert Murdoch was not completely impoverished, personally, by the News International phone hacking scandal is the real issue here.
Does it matter though? If it’s legitimate media, and they’re still hounding someone/camped out on their lawn a-la those scenes in “Apollo 13”, and so forth, is there really any distinction between them and the paparazzi?
I feel like there might ought to be certain restrictions on things like how close they can come to someone’s residence/place they’re staying, as well as certain restrictions on how close they can come if the celebrities are “off the clock”, so to speak. I mean, if it’s the Oscars, they can pester the stars all they like, but if say… George Clooney is going out to get the newspaper on a Monday morning, he shouldn’t have to be concerned with people crowding around/taking photos of him in his sweatpants, and so forth. Or for that matter, if he wants to go take his dogs to the park and play frisbee with them, they shouldn’t have to steer around assholes with cameras to do so.
I would think that the best way to accomplish this would be to tighten up the harassment laws such that taking unasked photos in public is very close, unless there are strict rules followed.
I’m saying not to equate paparazzi and The Media where it does not apply. Was Lester Holt in any of those cars chasing Harry and Megan around NYC?
Certainly it’s possible for respectable outlets to take an invasion of privacy too far, and they should not do that.
I haven’t seen the movie Apollo 13 and can’t speak to the fictional scene that you reference.
Here’s a link to an image from the movie, where the news media had basically besieged Jim Lovell’s family in their own home.
Where I’m going isn’t in saying they can’t publish what they like, but rather that there should be some common-sense restrictions and regulations on how they go about it. No car chases, no getting on people’s lawns, no ambushing, and so forth.
I tend to think that the line between the legitimate media and the paparazzi is very thin, and is mostly dependent on what they’re covering. The legitimate media can definitely be every bit as bad, but the big difference is that the paparazzi make their livings by doing that sort of thing to celebrities 24/7.
