I thought that that I would jump on the band wagon and post about the recent photos of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. There hasn't been this much discussion over scantily clad royals since we were treated to Princess Leia's slave girl costume in The Return of the Jedi. This is also an article about irony, which I am sure I will butcher the example of.
What has really got me angry has been the "non-news" factor of the whole spectacle. Let's be honest, the grainy photos of Kate (yes, I have done my research) are nothing explicit, embarrassing (in themselves or their context, it's just people chilling out and sunbathing) or in any way "exciting". I can't help but wonder how much of their "news-factor" has been enhanced by the extreme and vitriolic reaction from St James' Palace itself, trying to sue and decry the press for the photos' existence. Do not mistake this for a throw away comment - magazines like Closer thrive on the notoriety and public interest in scandal to shift more copies. They also budget for the need to fight legal cases and pay out settlements - safe in the knowledge that in the end they stand to make a profit that is even greater because of the disputes.
I am angry because of the fact that the "news" can be hijacked by these stories and the publications that foster them. Right now there are genuinely news worthy events going on. For the US, the presidential election season is about to start, the results of which will affect the entire planet. Meanwhile, in the Arab world people are being killed because of a film that depicts Islam in an unfavourable way - at least the British military has not taken that approach to dealing with the nude photos on the orders of the sovereign (acerbic joke!). Here in the UK, we are changing the entire education system for our 14-16 year olds, one of the most important educational stages for our children that is a predictor of their chances of moving on to A levels and then University. Instead we are talking about breasts. Hysteria over the photos and the damage that they cause has taken on a force of its own that is growing daily. People have even evoked the memory of Princess Diana to help rebuke the photos. The shaky logic here is that Diana's death was caused by the paparazzi, ergo any paparazzi interference with her children can be a cause of anguish for them. That makes sense in the short term but it does not exactly explain how Diana's crash and long range photos of people sunbathing are equivalent. Unless we are to believe that the royal family break into a sweat whenever a paparazzi is near, regardless of the context.
Instead we are concentrating on Europe being plunged into legal machinations as the press in Italy, Ireland and beyond is releasing the photos despite the royal family trying to sue them. This is just plain nuts. The digital age we live in means that the photos are not going to go away. Never. It really does not matter whom you sue. Or how much money you use to sue them with. Pressing criminal charges in France might work as a deterrent - France has laws that allows criminal prosecution for invasion of privacy - but this is by no means a solid conclusion. Ultimately, this will result in a lot of hot air and damages being paid by magazines that can recoup their punishments through increased sales.
The situation in the UK will likely yield the royals a payout of damages from the press. The English law of breach of confidence has been twisted by the courts to conform with Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that gives the right to a private life. Breach of confidence has been extended to include cases where there has been no pre-existing duty of confidence, as long as the victim has a reasonable expectation that what they were doing was to be kept private. In this case, the information automatically becomes "private" and this allows the courts to protect the victim by limiting the release of this information. The exception to this (and thus the operation of freedom of speech) is if the release of the private information is necessary to serve or protect the public interest. Which brings me onto the next point.
I am not a particular fan of royalties as they fall into the category of oligarchy. You know, along with, autocracy, Soviet and Sino-communism, dictatorship and fundamentalist theocracy. That being the case, I will try and be as logical as I can be in this point.
We often talk about the "public interest" when we discuss free speech and when it is allowed to over-ride the right to privacy. The public interest is generally not taken to mean what the public is interested in but what is "important" for them to know. I will ignore the inherent patronisation in this logic and assume, therefore, that in theory a democratic vote of a selection of peers could be used to decide what falls into which category; important to know or mere curious frivolities. That is fine to conceptualise - knowing that an MP is corrupt is important for their constituents to know, but showing what underwear they have on probably isn't - and we can see that nude photos of royals is not exactly important for the public to know or the UK to function. The problem I have is that little of what the royalty do in the public eye is actually necessary for the functioning of anything. Sure it might be traditional, or interesting, but it is not actually needed.
William and Kate's wedding for instance, served me no purpose and I would contend that the attention and grandeur it was afforded was far in excess of the functional benefit it had to the nation. Please, lets not go down the route of "it inspired me so much that I am twice the person that I was before". I don't believe that, and if you do, you need a reality check and to read more on philosophy. And here is the problem - if most of what we see the royals do is because we are interested in them, rather than in our public interest, then the sensationalisation of their lives becomes the raison d'etre of their continuing publicity and blurs the line between public interest and public entertainment. I said I would try and be objective about this - I have probably failed. I cannot argue that curiosity should override the law - what I do contend is that when an institution makes itself a regular public attraction, it becomes harder to know when that life ends, and private life begins.
I really did not care about the photos at all when I first heard of them. This was simply because I don't care about naked photos of misguided celebrities in general. What caused me to discuss this at all is the fact that everyone around me seems intent to do this as well! Due to this fact, I plan on wrapping this up quite quickly.
This "news" story cheapens journalism by taking time away from important issues in the world that require scrutiny and reporting on. It also is a hotbed for the erosion of freedom of the press and freedom of speech (see the Mosley v News Group case to see a case where clear questions of personality were raised over a senior industry figurehead yet he was allowed the clemency of the courts). Lastly it is a sad tale of irony on two counts; one, a vestigial institution that relies on its publicity to generate its support and continued existence yet shies away from the light when it burns too brightly; two, is its desperate attempts to limit the perceived damage to its members when those very efforts continue to perpetuate and grow the facts that are causing the damage itself.
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