In the wake of Princess Diana’s tragic death, news media, including the Tribune, are scurrying to distance themselves from paparazzi-style journalists. The Tribune formally intoned in a Sept. 2 editorial that “serious newspapers and other serious media do not chase down subjects for photographs or interviews. We are recorders and reporters of events, not manufacturers of them.”
Not surprisingly, the Trib and many other self-described “serious media” are vigorously insisting that the ultimate market for the work of paparazzi isn’t the tabloid press but the tabloid buyers. In the search for who’s covered with blood, the Trib thinks consumers should check their own hands first.
Let’s see if I have this straight. As long as there’s a market, we shouldn’t blame the seller. Thus, by the Tribune’s logic, a paper isn’t to blame for publishing photos taken by lawbreaking creeps who violate every standard of decency.
That must mean drug dealers aren’t to blame for selling their poison; after all, there’s a market for it. You can’t blame special-interest groups for bribing public officials; there’s certainly a market for that too. Child pornographers clearly should be let off the hook. And, of course, it isn’t Kathie Lee Gifford or Nike who are to blame for using child labor to produce clothes or high-priced shoes; the real culprits are the consumers who buy this stuff.
It’s an interesting theory that would be inconceivable even in that rose-colored world where the Trib sees itself as a scholarly reporter and not a business that would like to sell more papers.
The morning after the death, the Tribune ran a photo of Diana and Dodi Fayed on the beach and another of Diana and her two sons. To cap it off, on Page 2 there was also a classic telephoto shot of Ted Turner and Jane Fonda on a sailboat. So who should be checking their hands first? Unfortunately, those aren’t inkstains on the hands of “serious media.”
