Category: Public Interest

The death of kiss and tell

16-Jun-09 17:08

I watched an interesting discussion on Panorama last night around the growing debate in Britain over whether the country's privacy law - established in a series of high profile, celebrity court cases, is filtering down from tabloid headlines to infringe upon overall press freedom.

The issue of press freedom versus right to privacy was most recently brought to light in the case of Formula One boss Max Mosley. The News of the World exposed Max Mosley as having engaged in a sado-masochistic orgy with five prostitutes with accusations of Nazi overtones to the encounter. Instead of shying away from the limelight of the embarrassing revelations, he fought back, establishing in court that there was no Nazi element and claiming that his right to privacy had been invaded with no over-reaching public purpose in the publication of those details of his sex life.

He claimed that the revelation's had "destroyed a family, ruined a life and done so simply to sell some of their newspapers." And perhaps he's right; do the press really have the right to expose such stories just to sell papers?

Privacy laws are a tricky subject to judge, as on one hand you want the press to have the freedom to expose certain individual's exploits - as it may be in the public's interest (such as the recent revelations on MP's expenses), but on the other hand, is it really necessary to have the paparazzi lens peering through someone's bedroom window in the hope of getting that perfect shot - surly that's taking it a step too far?

The question is who can really make a call as to whether exposing one person's exploits really is in the public's interest, which in my mind is the only justification for reporting the fact in the first instance?

What's worrying is that if the UK public continue to crave scandal, then the papers will continue to report it. You only have to look at the front page headlines to understand what news really sells and these are often a combination of "bad news, human interest, topicality and celebrity". So if you have a celebrity, caught in a compromising position, which is likely to damage their public persona, then you have the makings of a big story which is going to sell.

 

Rachel