Celebrity Privacy- Do they deserve it?!

Last semester, in our Law for Journalists module, we were asked to write an essay on the topic ‘Do celebrities have a right to privacy?’ We had discussed in depth whether people in the limelight actually deserved a moment of reality now and then, and to keep parts of their personal and family life separate from the public eye, or actually if the fact that they were famous meant that the right to privacy was forfieted.

Wanting to show an un-biased view when writing my essay, I went for the ‘Yes they do’ but  ‘No they don’t’ argument, which I realised really got me nowhere in figuring out my own personal opinions on the subject, so after seeing an article related to privacy, I decided to write about where I stand on the debate….

 

It was a story I read today about JK Rowling that got me thinking once again about celebs and the right to privacy. In 2004 she took a picture agency to court to ban the publication of a long-lens photograph taken of her son David, claiming that her family’s right to privacy had been infringed. Eventually, the  judge decided that no action would be taken and that the law did not provide celebrities with “a press-free zone for their children in respect of absolutely everything they choose to do”. This loss was a major blow for not only Rowling, but any other celebrity who aimed to take on the press in a bid for privacy.

However, after going to the court of appeal soon after the ruling, Rowling has now won her battle to ban further publication of the picture, and this is being hailed as a major development in British law. The court decided that children of famous parents should really have all the rights of a child that have an ‘ordinary’ parent. “If a child of parents who are not in the public eye could reasonably expect not to have photographs of him published in the media, so too should the child of a famous parent”

I agree with the court in this instance, or any other where it is a family member of the celebrity whose privacy has been breached, as they themselves are not famous and have not chosen to be in the public eye, therefore the right to complete privacy I think is fair. However, I think that the celebrities themselves don’t deserve the right to complete privacy in most areas of their life. This is because they have chosen to take on a profession that along with it brings fame, and it is unreasonable of them to expect privacy when there is so much public interest surrounding them and what they do. Gossip magazines thrive on this kind of thing, and if by printing stories about the life of a celebrity that is slightly scandalous, or prying into their private lives, the sales go through the roof, what is the harm if something is in the interest of the public?!!

 

 

Anyway, what would I do with my life if I couldn’t read Heat magazine?!! Like most people, I love any kind of gossip, a nose into people’s private lives, and what weird and whacky things those famous types are up to, and quite frankly most newspapers would have nothing interesting in them if such stories or photos could never be printed…

 

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