The paparazzi - a fusion of the Italian words papatacci, meaning gnat and razzi meaning the popping of flashbulbs. It is also known as aggressive photography. The word paparazzo was coined by Federico Fellini, the name he gave to a prying society cameraman in his 1959 film "La Dolce Vita". Paparazzi photographers are fueled by large sums of money offered by the tabloid press. They try to catch the rich and famous in unflattering situations.
The new breed of journalism grew by leaps and bounds after the Watergate scandal first broke in Washington, DC (Petersen's, 57). At first the paparazzi were an annoying group of photographers who were persistent when trying to get the perfect shot of a celebrity so they could sell the image for large sums of money but as technology became more advanced so did the equipment the paparazzi used - telephoto lenses, hi-tech listening devices, and powerful zoom lenses on video cameras.
No major celebrity can avoid them. Emerging from cars, entering glittering parties or trying to take a secluded vacation, the glamour figures of the '90s are hounded mercilessly by the men-and a few women-who wield long lenses and a brazen shamelessness (Maclean, 38). Today, paparazzi's tread on private property, film celebrities during intimate moments, and even go as far as stalking a public figure.
Some of these photos can be worth in the millions of dollars. A single photograph of Prince Charles seen together with his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles is estimated to be worth 5 million English pounds. The prince says he "would love to figure out a way for the proceeds to go to charity" (Newsweek, 95).The prince and his mistress usually arrive and depart at different times in order to avoid the paparazzi when they attend a function together.
The prince has been lucky. Almost all well known faces have had run-ins with the paparazzi but many have horror stories to tell. The Screen Actors Guild has been concerned with the paparazzi and how it affects many of it's 100,000 members. "The death of princess Diana was the final straw" according to the SAG president, Richard Masur. He, along with California Senators Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and three respected constitutional scholars had a meeting to discuss what could be done about the paparazzi. In less than four hours, they came up with the rough wording of S. 2103 (Quill, 27).
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...g with the intent to capture audio or video images of a celebrity or crime victim engaging in a personal or family activity. It will allow the celebrity or crime victim to recover damages from the paparazzi and people who employ them (Victorville). According to Andrea Brown, a spokesperson for former governor Pete Wilson, "The governor thought it was important because of safety issues for normal everyday people. These people deserve to conduct their personal lives in private. Technology requires changes in any law. It creates new ways for people to commit crimes."
After all the research done on the pro's and con's of new laws that would affect the paparazzi it's easy to see how these laws could affect people on both sides of the issue. Paparazzi photographers have to make a living and the famous deserve their privacy. Celebrities know that with fame comes the loss of privacy but they do not deserve to loss all privacy and not all paparazzi photographers are ruthless, shameless, aggressive people. The laws that came into effect on January 1st, 1999 were only to restrain the most aggressive of photographers. We can only hope that the paparazzi will learn when they've gone too far.
While it is accurate that everyone needs privacy but has that gone too far? David took privacy a little too far in the article and definitely neglected to mention that it is rarely for any of us has to deal with situation that involved police
New technology has fuelled the expansion with the growth of phone apps, social media formats, smartphones able to capture video and upload instantly onto the web. The public is now recording, documenting, sharing and viewing events as they happen, often before professional journalist or reporters. Technology allows people to view major events in real time anywhere in the world, creating a ‘global village’ in which everyone is connected (McLuhan 1964; cited in Giddens 2013). However, the mass medias of television, radio and newspapers both in print and online, continue to be the mediums the public accesses the news and events on a local, national and international
Celebrities like acting and singing for the public, but it does not mean fame is really their thing. Celebrities sometimes just like acting because it is what they like and want privacy. During an interview with Today, an American talk show, the popular actor Johnny Depp was interviewed and according to Liat Kornowski, Deputy Director of Growth and Analytics, The Huffington Post, he mention that being famous is like being a fugitive when he stated, “...and then you start to realize that for the past 10 or 15 years you've been going into restaurants through the back door, scurrying along greasy floors, trying to get to some private room. It's not unlike living like a fugitive." Johnny Depp likes his career, but might not appreciate that he needs to hide from paparazzi and can not take his children to take a walk to the park or the streets because of cameras following him almost every public place he goes. Many celebrities have the same opinion as Johnny Depp when people do not give celebrities the privacy to enjoy a day out with their children and family for one day with no one bothering them. When people say that celebrities are rude it can be because the celebrities do not want attention drawn to their child. Celebrities can have all the fancy clothes and pay hundreds of dollars on it but should
Marshall P. David (1997). Celebrity Power; Fame in Contemporary Culture. May 16, 2010. Electronically retrieved from
all worthy people living in a jubilant but melancholy world, why should anyone get worse penalties than another? Some may feel like celebrities should have longer jail sentences, higher tickets, and pay more money for fines. Others think that celebrities should be treated fairly like everyone else. Honestly nothing determines who a celebrity is, what actually determines who a celebrity is? Celebrities are all regular people however some receive a high amount of bad publicity plus the sentence or what they owe.
The Watergate scandal significantly changed many things in America. Changes to American journalism were the biggest changes that occurred because of the scandal. Prior to the scandal, journalism was very straightforward and did not use any innovated ways to get stories. The journalists of the time hardly ever used anonymous sources in their reports because they didn’t think that the public would accept the information if it wasn’t coming from a named
...uld be justifiable to emphasize that a good number of them find it sickening to miss the limelight. . Nonetheless, it goes without mentioning that celebrities get exploited because some gossip stories explore the things that would otherwise be considered to be private.
According to Associate Press –paparazzi become targets of criminal probe. “the paparazzi are famous for doing most anything to obtain exclusive pictures of those on Hollywood’s A List, but how the celebrity hunters have become prey themselves, targets of a criminal investigation that comes amid complicates about their aggressive tactics,” said this new press. The actress Lindsay Lohan the teen star and a photographer got involved in a traffic accident trying to escape from the police for felonies such a trespassing to more serious crimes like false captivity and potential conspiration. “It is my sense that activities of the paparazzi have grown more and more aggressive over the last couple of years,” said William Hodgman, (the chief of the target crimes of Los Angeles Country District Attorney’s Office). Photographers sell for anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand.
During the first initial weeks of the scandal, the media seemed disinterested and didn’t want to report anything to early in fear of the Nixon administration. It took the work of two young reporters constantly investigating and getting anonymous help to spark a firestorm of investigations into the scandal itself and increase public interest into the newly discovered Watergate scandal. The names of those two young reporters were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and their approach to investigative journalism is what helped bring the story more into the public eye. Information about the Watergate scandal kept pouring out in the form of countless newspaper articles, editorials, and other news related organization after Woodward and Bernstein’s stories got more exposure. “Relying heavily upon anonymous sources, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered information suggesting that knowledge of the break-in, and attempts to cover it up, led deeply into the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and the White House”(“Watergate Scandal” 19). The press...
Photographing an individual whether famous or not in public will not violate that person’s privacy under the laws in most countries. Assuming the paparazzi isn’t assaulting someone or trespassing or otherwise doing something illegal while taking such a picture, he or she will not be violating the law. Public figures do not ask for a total invasion of their privitness .Few of us lead lives that are not classified into a newsworthy. Just because these people contribute to their profession in front of the world, it does not mean that they should be denied the right to privacy and respect. Therefore Paparazzi should be banned from exposing people’s private lives, any way they want.
After observing and researching all the sources portraying celebrities I have came into a conclusion that todays society it seems like all we want is to be accepted and we tend to look at other people and judge. Its not right, we all are different and thats what makes the world go round. It would be a pretty boring world if we were all the same. Celebrities deal with this everyday, I think the paparazzi know more about some celebrities lives than they actually do. They judge them for who they are and what they do, it is not right nor fair.
In order to understand new media, one must first have a solid background of the old media. The old media traces its origins back to the “elite or partisan press [that] dominated American journalism in the early days of the republic” (Davis 29). With the advent of the penny press around 1833, the press changed its basic purpose and function from obtaining voters for its affiliated political party to making profit (Davis 29). With more available papers, individual companies competed with each other with “muckraking journalism”—investigative journalism exposing corruption—and “yellow journalism”—sensationalist journalism that completely disregarded the facts (Davis 30). The press continued to evolve its journalistic approaches and next shifted to “lapdog journalism,” r...
George Clooney said at a press conference supermarket tabloids and television shows have made “bounty hunters” out of the photographers. He challenged editors to clean up their act or have others do it for them.
2013 jan 04: B.1. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. . ProQuest Staff. "At Issue: Privacy and the Press."
When living their day-to-day lives in the public eye, many celebrities must deal with gossip columnists, the infatuation of stalkers, and the unrelenting paparazzi. They follow celebrities into restaurants, their children’s schools, on vacations, and even their residential neighborhoods (Jones). By seeking out and publishing the whereabouts of celebrities, they cannot be sure who will find or come across that information. The paparazzi ...