22 November 2008
Celebrity damsels in distress and media realities
26 April 2007
Commentary by Sarah Gooding: Te Waha Nui Online
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Footage of Anna Nicole Smith’s body being hauled out of a hotel on a stretcher was broadcast worldwide and on YouTube. Some saw this as a disgrace, the tasteless act of exploiting and publicising a vulnerable human being’s final moments. Others saw it as the press doing its job.
Celebrity privacy is a contentious issue, particularly when the celebrity is dead. The death of Anna Nicole Smith - “buxom former Playboy model, occasional actress and singer, reality-television star, diet-pill peddler, and wife of late billionaire oil baron J. Howard Marshall II” (New York Times) - spawned a media craze that is still going today.
When the tabloid-target died on February 5, 2007, the media was fixated on reporting the story of how, why, when, and so on as soon as journalists found out.
It seems the swarms of paparazzi - press photographers - and reporters gave little consideration to article 5 of the Munich Charter of Codes and Ethics (1971): “To restrict him/herself to the respect of privacy”.
The general public were not much more dignified either.
Footage of her body being hauled out of a hotel on a stretcher was broadcast worldwide, on news stations and on the internet video site YouTube. Some would see this as a disgrace, the tasteless act of exploiting and publicising a vulnerable human being’s final moments, and impairing their chance of survival.
Others saw it as merely the press doing its job, and the public as exercising their understandable curiosity.
After all, the incident did take place on public grounds. However the hordes of people would hardly have helped the officers do their job in trying to save Smith.
Ethical questions
This is where ethical questions arise - when the public’s right to know, and the person’s right to privacy (regardless of their celebrity status) - clash. One must supersede the other, for the ongoing conflict between public and private rights only leads to more ethical dilemmas.
Following the official announcement of her death shortly after the incident, the media speculation that followed was immense. She lived in the public eye, some would say even for it.
A brief run-down on her life shows a scandalous exhibitionist’s drug-fuelled escapades; a short-lived marriage to an 89-year-old man when she was 26, the resulting court battle for half of his billion dollar fortune; two love interests - who are now fighting for custody of her child, born shortly before she died; diet-pill endorsements and weight problems.
Not to mention what initially catapulted the “blonde bombshell” to fame and misfortune. Smith, who modelled herself on Marilyn Monroe, rose to fame as a Playboy playmate.
A popular public view seemed to be: “Even though her life is famous, it doesn’t mean her death has to be” (Star Tribune). It seems a celebrity should be afforded privacy when her life is in danger and her family are trying to deal with it.
The media should just leave them alone, one would think.
The media speculation that ensued after her death included outrageous claims of suicide, murder, drugs, depression (following her 20-year-old son’s demise a mere five months earlier, another coincidental and highly media-saturated event), and illness.
Contents of her refrigerator were revealed in full-page glossy spreads in women’s magazines, rife with unfounded speculation on the cause of her death and desperately clinging to every little bit of evidence they could exaggerate or fabricate from rumours.
Her diaries sold
Her diaries were then sold after her death. One begins to wonder how much her immediate family cared for her in the first place, and this neglect may begin to explain why her decomposing corpse started to rot while the family were in court deciding the custody of her last remaining child, as well as determining or more like continuing speculation on her cause of death.
It is issues like these that call into question a person’s basic human rights, such as a proper burial after death. The main reason for all this extended court battling could be public pressure and badgering from the press that would have prompted them to come up with an answer sooner rather than later.
But one would also hope the madness would end soon, for the sake of the child. The family would also no doubt like to please the press and get it off their backs so they could get on with their lives and come to grips with what has happened. It is known however that headlines such as “Lawyers circulating like vultures” and “Million-dollar baby born into chaos” certainly would not have helped the court process run easily.
One way of explaining the immense public interest in Smith’s case and so the extreme press interest in gaining as much information as quickly as possible is in examining Tittle and Paternoster’s 10 Middle Class Society Norms.
Smith’s case seemed to fall under all facets of the outline:
Privacy: Her and her family’s privacy was breached when video footage of her dead/dying body exiting the hotel was broadcast across the world. For example when her diaries were sold after her death, when her family was hounded by press and paparazzi alike while they were in such a vulnerable state, let alone Smith’s own vulnerable state as she lay dying and the cameras were shoved in her face. All these aspects seem to be evidence that the press crossed a number of ethical boundaries.
Prudence was another aspect not adhered to by the press, as well as peacefulness and moderation (the immense press exposure of her death is proof enough of this).
Honesty is another questionable trait of the media coverage of Smith’s death, yet loyalty is an even bigger questionable aspect – to the public perhaps, to serve their curiosity needs, or to Smith to respect her wishes in a way that adheres to the code of courtesy; another element of Tittle and Paternoster’s outline.
Moderation was certainly not exercised, yet this is somewhat of a conventionality of the press, as is participation in the interests of the readers, but also to gain scoops for the press’s own gains.
Perhaps the biggest element that comes into play however is responsibility. To whom, one might ask, the public has, to report the news.
Tasteful reporting?
Or is the responsibility to the family to respect their wishes and report her tragedy accordingly, in a tasteful manner?
Regardless of who you are or might have been, it is understandable there will be immense public interest in a scandalous demise such as this.
However, when spreading word or images, it seems unacceptable to risk compromising the abilities of the lifesavers, in this case the doctors et al who were hounded by press while they were trying to save her life.
There should be strong guidelines and rules put in place to limit the abilities of press and their affiliates in the time of a person’s needs. In this case it seems evident that the press breached the ethical element of privacy, one that is of utmost importance.
This issue should be addressed immediately so that future damsels in distress do not fall prey to the harsh realities of the press, when they are in their hour of need.
Sarah Gooding is a third year Bachelor of Communications student at AUT, majoring in Journalism. This article was an ethics assignment in the Public Affairs Reporting paper.
Links:
- Pew Research
- Think Progress
- Tittle and Paternoster
- YouTube
