Be the Change you want to see in the Media!
After watching Newsflash: Stories that Stopped the World, especially the bit about the deadly accident of Lady Diana in 1997 caused by paparazzies following her car, I began to wonder about the paparazzi culture in connection with breaking news stories.
First of all the media only gives us what we want and evidently we want to know about every step famous people make. Thus the paparazzi culture was born out of our curiosity. But is it really necessary to follow famous people around all day long? One might say “No” but our curiosity mostly gets the best of us.
After Lady Diana’s death the paparazzi culture was highly criticized, ironically enough, by the media and its consumers themselves. Those, who are actually, their employers. The media industry somehow needed to criticize itself while still reporting about the tragedy. And even now, almost 20 years later, the media hasn’t changed at all. Celebrities are still followed around so we can read up on them doing the most humanly things like grocery shopping or visiting friends. Something that stuck with me is a headline I saw back in 2007 after Prince William and Kate Middleton broke up. She too was followed around by paparazzies and had no claim to security paid for by the British Royal Family because she wasn’t a member of it, even though she was clearly only followed by the media because of her connection to Prince William.
I think the comparison is quite fitting and is a good example how things are still the same even after the great tragedy of two lost lives.
I guess what I want to say is: Before the media industry can change, we, the consumers, have to change.
