Friday 14 September 2012

a private joy




The BBC World Service has asked me to comment on the publication today of pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge by the French edition of Closer Magazine:



Thank you for inviting me to comment on the 'Kate Pics Story'. I am no subject expert, nor am I related to the couple, so I don't speak with any specific authority, but from a personal, and keenly felt, perspective what saddens me is this:

William's mother, Princess Diana, died in a Paris road tunnel fifteen years ago, pursued by paparazzi. We know their behaviour had over the years become a source of pain and anguish to her, and we can assume that their unrelenting, aggressive conduct contributed to, if not indeed caused, the accident that killed her. It was clear then that these photographers and those parts of the press that publish their pictures, had lost any sense of respect for, or empathy with, other human beings, whom they had started to treat as mere fodder to feed a self-generated, voracious appetite. There is such a thing as public interest, there is such a thing as freedom of speech, and what they were doing had nothing to do with either of these. It was pure exploitation for the sake of profit. It was the embodiment of a mentality that, as Oscar Wilde put it so many years ago, 'knows the price of everything and the value of nothing'.

What advances us as a species is our ability to learn, and many of us had hoped that it would not just be legislation but also the experience of their culpability and some sense of personal responsibility that would entice editors and photographers to exercise restraint when dealing with Diana's offspring, and with people who are in the public eye generally, and allow them their privacy where it is clearly sought. Which is why these pictures are appalling. What the Duchess is or isn't wearing is, quite literally, immaterial. She was on a private estate, in her own time, with her husband. Like any of us, she has every right to have that sphere preserved. Whether a great effort was required to take these pictures or not is also irrelevant. They are a deliberate intrusion and, therefore, an act of violation.

Laurence Pieau, the Editor of Closer Magazine France, claims that these pictures “are full of joy" and that they are "not degrading". And this may well be so. But it isn't for her, or for any 'Celebrity Magazine' to publish them, it wasn't for the photographer who took them to take them and it isn't for us to see them. This is a joy that belongs to the newlyweds, whoever they happen to be, unless and until they themselves decide to share it. And it is this arrogance and sense of entitlement that Ms Pieau expresses and that still pervades her sector of the media that I abhor. Which is why to my mind, if she possesses any shred of dignity at all, she will apologise to the couple and authorise a substantial donation to charity on their behalf.





sebastian's website   sebastian on facebook