by Ascen Arriazu

Created on: March 02, 2008

"Discussing the issues at stake in the debate about journalism and invasion of privacy"

The Media has been and will always be accused of intrusion on private lives. It is important to have a look at what privacy means in order to be able to determine whether these accusations have some justified basis. In the Collins Essential English Dictionary the definition of privacy is: "If you have privacy, you are alone or you can be alone, so that you can do things without other people seeing you or disturbing you".

At this point it is necessary to consider some questions such as: what is understood by words like alone and disturbing? Let's have a look at photographs for example. Certainly those who are known as paparazzi, an Italian word for freelance photographers, using powerful telephoto lenses which allow them to take pictures from a very long distance should not be considered "disturbing" as they do not establish any contact at all with their subjects. It is indeed the reaction after seeing oneself exposed to the public eye, probably in not very nice postures or practicing "unusual activities", which causes the polemics. But which subjects are likely to become press targets? It will not be someone who nobody knows anything of at all, of course! It will have to be, without any doubt, a personality in whom the common citizenry can reflect its own dreams and ambitions; but then, what makes the difference between what is called a personality and what is called a person next door? In other words: what makes someone famous? Why is there such a title as public people? And if they are considered different from a common citizen, if the world " public" does really honour its meaning, the next question would be: where are the limits drawn that stop journalists from being intrusive? The answer to it is the key problem: the general public wants to know more and more about their idols. They are ready to buy anything which is published, broadcast, or such like, but they will also be ready to blame the media when things do not go as they should. Sometimes it is even other publications that accuse competitors of being intrusive. A good example of this is what happens with the Royal Family.

Recently there has been a lot of polemic about Lady Diana relationship with the press but let's look even earlier at the family's history: the covering of Princess Margaret's divorce, when quality newspapers blamed the tabloids of being, in part, responsible for the couple breaking up. Philip Howard said in relation to this: "Almost since the day of their marriage the press, fed by bitchy society gossip, took a prurient and intrusive interest in their private life". He calls this interest for knowing more and more of the royal life, "National hypocrisy masquerading as morality". But it is really easy to blame the media with its vampiric appetite for money and recognition, for the general public cruel obsession for filling their lives with the success and misfortunes of a few well known so called " personalities". After all, the only thing the media does is to fulfill its duty: to inform and to please the public by giving us what we "really, really want": "sensationalism" and a "little bit" of gossip to break up the everyday monotony.

To finish with, regarding the targets of paparazzi and journalists, in the majority of cases, they also get what they need: money, an easy life and our "sincere" admiration.

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