The invasion of someone else's private life for their amusement.



I also remember 'ordinary' people having their stories splashed across the pages of the rags. And then stories like Mosley's, for which there was no public interest justification.

Are you really suggesting that, because stories in the public interest have been published, the titillation and the invasions of privacy (which, I suggest, far outweigh the former) is acceptable – or even that you cannot have one without the other?



Forget that. There is the invasion of someone else's private life for the amusement of the buyer – irrespective of the means used to gather the information. If you want to be slightly more philosophically complex, there's the commoditisation of private life. Are you suggesting that all [iNOTW[/i readers were too thick to consider such things?

This morning was good again – a 21-year-old woman chased down streets at night by a pack of 10 men with cameras. Legal. And nice.

I think the most damning thing about Sienna Miller's testimony is the point she made about the effect it had with her and those closest to her, with her accusing them of selling stories. Never mind the picture out of context, but the effect that the actions of the paparazzi have reaches far beyond the subject of the stories/scoops/bullshst to completely innocent people whose only mistake is to be close to someone.

Indeed.

And on the same theme, Max Mosely is certainly convinced that the actions of the [iNOTW[/i (and subsequent media orgy) were contributory factors in the subsequent death of his son. Indeed, when he attended his son's funeral, he was mobbed by the gutter press.

Well it seems the Pap's and the papers who buy their trashy pictures really are thick.
Just as she left the Leveson inquiry JK Rowling is chased down the street by camera wielding nutjobs.
Irony as a concept really is beyond these scumbags isn't it.

You really couldn't make it up.

Oh, they do [ithat[/i all the time.

Another important point made by Sienna Miller was the difference between being chased down the street by ten men and being chased down the street by ten men with cameras. There isn't a difference and in either case it shouldn't be difficult to decide if distress was caused.

There was also an interesting point made by Daniel Hannan (spit) on tonight's QT. If a newspaper is found guilty of printin untrue stories, then punitive damages should be awarded against the editor personally, as well as the newspaper proprietors

Oh, there ate so many reasons I like that idea.

tbf, libel law allows the author, publisher, distributor and anyone with editorial supervision, from sub to editor, to be joined to the action and sued. But in 99.9% of cases, the paper will pay any damages awarded against an employee.

Of course, with libel the issue isn't so much whether a story is untrue, but whether it's damaging …

Perhaps a newspaper should be required to devote equal amount of column space on the same page for false stories i.e. like an apology to the reader for deliberately misleading them. Each reference should detail where the newspaper got it wrong.

Here's the problem. In terms of what Sienna Miller is complaining about, the people who are doing the chasing will be paps, independents, not in the main (if at all) newspaper employees.

So no new law whatsoever passed against newspapers would even slightly help.

I would agree that 10 men chasing a young lass down the street already falls within the criminal law, and could be dealt with accordingly, but how? She is in a similar situation to the rest of us, which is getting the police to turn out in less than half a day for anything that is less than life and death.

that isn't, especially, a criticism of the police, although I have plenty, but they do have scarce resources and a call like "Hi, I'm Sienna Miller, there's some photographers chasing me and I am upset" isn't going to obtain an emergency police response. Why? Because she is in no danger whatsoever. Nothing will happen to her. It is very unpleasant for her, and certainly shouldn't happen, but it is in a (very) long list of things which the law finds difficult or impossible to deal with. And I don't see any easy answer at all, beyond paying for private personal protection, which she shouldn't have to do, but realistically no law is ever going to stop this.

Not employees, but possibly commissioned. And even if they're doing it on spec, they're relying on newspapers (and magazines) to buy the pics.

See above. Remove the market for their pics, remove their behaviour.

Unless they chase her into a Paris motorway tunnel...

Perhaps we could decriminalise the offence of "I'll shove that camera up your ar[is[/ie"?