How Much To Publish: Celebrities Have Rights Too

“Assume that you’ve learned that two married high-level government officials with young children are having a sexual affair. Write 200 words about how you would decide whether to report that news.”

This question was posed to me as an online student at MSU, inviting budding journalists to debate on the dilemma of right to information vs. right to privacy. In a quest to find an answer, I stumbled upon numerous news reports of celebrities and politicians filing lawsuits against the media for invading their privacy — all of which begged the question: Is the public’s right to know more important than a citizen’s right to privacy? And who gets to decide what falls under ‘public interest’.

People being interested in a topic is different from topics of public interest. That’s an important distinction which can make or break a court verdict.

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

The debate resurfaced again when recently, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex sued the paparazzi for invading their privacy after unauthorised images of their son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, supposedly taken in the garden of their California home, emerged for sale.

Increasingly, media outlets have been tearing open celebrities’ private lives for ‘scoops’. From sending secret drones into their bedrooms to angling cameras under their skirt, they’re not only crossing ethical boundaries but also violating human rights in the process.

Aren’t they worried about being sued and having to pay fines?

Being in the news for a lawsuit offers the publication free worldwide publicity while piquing reader’s curiosity that they wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise. By the time a court decision is announced, the publication has already sold an exponential rate of copies, often compensating for the levied fine.

Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash

But these profits come at serious ethical costs.

While publishing sensationalized stories, the outlets don’t stop to consider how this coverage will affect the people involved. They forget people on the other side of the camera are real humans with real feelings whose life will really be adversely affected by sharing their private and often embarrassing pictures and stories with the public. There have been countless reports of celebs suffering from mental health issues like anxiety and PTSD owing to paparazzi’s relentless hunger for a scoop. Actress Keira Knightley did not leave the house for three months and had to go through deep therapy and hypnosis to recover from the stress caused by photographers following and baiting her for a (newsworthy) reaction.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

However, as seen in Prince Harry and Meghan’s case, these scandalizing stories aren’t limited to celebrities alone. Even their families, even children, are targeted and harassed. Year after year celebs are speaking up about the issue including Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry who “tearfully described how paparazzi had stalked, shouted at, provoked and chased their children in public to get pictures”. USA Today reported.

They are hurting their own reputation

When tabloids publish unconsented ‘hot takes’, along with the photographed celebs, they are hurting their own reputation. After repeated incidents of media hyper-focusing on sneak peeks and shocking stories of ‘public’ people’s private lives, they are tainting themselves as shallow gossip magazines.

They’re lowering the journalism’s ethical standard by sending out a message that violating people’s right to privacy is the best way to write a trending story. Budding journalists like me often look up to these ‘major’ magazines full of tantalizing stories and are nudged towards believing honesty and respect should be left home to get a ‘viral’ byline.

Maybe that’s why the question is so important now. It encourages us to think and empowers us to decide what’s worth publishing keeping in mind — celebrities are people and they have rights too.

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This post was previously published on Equality Includes You and is republished here with permission from the author.
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