We've met the dark side of
journalism
By Allan R. Andrews,
Editor, Pacific Stars and
Stripes, Tokyo, Japan
First
published
September 7, 1997
Much
of my professional life as an editor has been spent
defending the idea of a free press and defending journalists who
practice being the eyes and ears of an informed public as well
as being fellow working stiffs; fellow sufferers of those who
hold power over us.
I still defend journalism and its practitioners, and I cannot
run from the paparazzi; they too are among us. I don't have to
be proud of what they do; I don't have to condone their relentless
pursuit of photographic subjects; I must admit, however, they
are part of my profession. Sadly, journalism has a dark side.
I've often challenged students and others by asking them "How
do you know Ronald Reagan really existed?" Few have eye-witness
personal experience of famous people. We learn of them through
the second-order world of broadcast or print media.
When we contemplate it, much of what we know about the world,
especially the world of politics and celebrity, we know only because
of the media. Working journalists keep us up to speed with the
world.
Lady Diana Spencer, the late Princess of Wales, the
most photographed woman of the '90s who died last Sunday at the
age of 36 in an automobile crash in Paris, was mediated to us
by what we see on television, hear on radio, or read about in
magazines and newspapers.
Her marriage in 1981 to Prince Charles, the heir to the throne
of Great Britain, was one of the outstanding media events of the
20th century; it ranks among the top audience-garnering events
of television.
Her death in 1997 may have triggered a self-examination period
for journalists that will make the tragedy in Paris an even bigger
"media" event.
To be sure, more people will line the streets of London to view
her bier than showed up to cheer her marriage, and that too will
be a media event.
Part of me, of course, rushes to deny the media had anything directly
to do with Diana's death. A car driven by a drunk driver that
enters a tunnel on a city street doing 121 miles per hour is
explanation
enough for a tragic end.
Emotional blaming of the
media for this tragedy, says Professor James Lull of San Jose
State University, " misunderstands the absolute necessity
for vigorous journalism -- even media scandals -- in democracies
such as ours."
Another part of me rushes to deny the legitimacy of the paparazzi
as journalists; to thrust a rigid line of definition between their
stalking of celebrities and the daily journalist's pursuit of
a newsworthy story. The line is blurred, however, as those who
chronicled the O.J. Simpson saga have clearly demonstrated.
A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times makes the case clear: Executives
of mainstream media must acknowledge, he writes, many more newspapers
and magazines are running paparazzi-type pictures "and are
publishing more unverified and sadistic gossip of their own creation."
Still another part of me wants to blame society. The market mentality
has taken control, claims columnist Russell Baker, a colleague
of Rosenthal's at the New York Times. The paparazzi will be berated
and condemned for invading the privacy of the rich and famous,
Baker writes. "Afterward, they will keep right on doing it
anyhow," he concludes. Why? Because it pays too well to be
abandoned.
The photographer who took fuzzy pictures of Princess Di and Dodi
al Fayad embracing at a Mediterranean resort was paid $210,000
by the U.S. tabloid that ran the pictures. The total amount paid
for those photos by worldwide publications that purchased them
is said to be in the vicinity of $3 million. It would take the
average working journalist more than 60 years to earn what that
paparazzum made in a single shoot.
Sensationalism sells, but that doesn't make it noble
and right, and while there are journalists who would leap at the
lottery prize of the career-making scandal or celebrity shot,
there are many who would walk away from it because they recognize
"there's no news here."
Yet another part of me wants to blame the human psyche; that part
of us that makes us celebrity watchers.
"Americans," Baker writes, "now consume 'celebrities'
like potato chips." The photographers chasing Princess Di
on that fateful night, Baker concludes, "were acting in behalf
of the millions who feast on the rich, famous and glamorous."
Princess Di, it has been pointed out by several observers, decried
the press on one hand but courted it on the other. The media that
made her the "Queen of Hearts" in so many places made
her life miserable in other places.
Our emptiness and shallowness
provide motivation for the consumer-photographer-publisher-profit
link.
Rather than attempting to assess blame, however, I'm seeking to
broaden understanding, and in my broadening I am forced to grant
the paparazzi admission into the world of journalists; they are
specialists, to be sure, in the fickle world of so- called "celebrity
journalism," but they are reaching readers as surely as any
ace reporter, columnist or cartoonist.
In my understanding, however, I demand these specialists be known
for what they represent: journalism's dark side.
The dark side of journalism exploits people, be they
celebrities or notorious criminals, cute children or serial killers,
naked sunbathers or cross-dressing gay activists. Most often the
exploitation comes in pursuit of money or fame.
Journalists are tempted by big bucks and by stories that provide
big ego boosts. We all work with our eye on the prize, be it the
Pulitzer or the "way-to-go" from our supervisor. Even
among journalists exists the temptation to celebrity status; the
big-name, big-money television journalists are called "stars,"
and newspaper editors still put that label on their best reporters.
It should come as no revelation to citizen-consumers that for
every media star there's a sleaze-ball colleague, and that most
journalists, decrying stardom and sleaze, fall into the working-stiff
middle.
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Allan R. Andrews can be contacted at allan.andrews@reporters.net