Most people have one of two ideas of news media in their mind: big, reputable news organizations where objectivity, timeliness, and news value are its core principles; or tabloids that publish sensationalized stories related to gossip, crime, and pop culture scandals. When people think of sleezy, inaccurate, or insensitive news coverage, they are typically thinking of tabloid journalism.
Tabloid journalism is closely associated with paparazzi, who are photographers that take pictures of high-profile people. They do this often when the subjects are simply going about their daily lives. Paparazzi’s aggressive and invasive nature can become borderline stalking.
An interesting aspect of tabloid journalism ethics – or lack thereof – is when it comes to celebrity privacy and respect. Celebrity privacy pertains to the rights of celebrities and public figures to keep personal information and parts of their lives out of the public eye. Most people would see this right to privacy as a basic human right, and paparazzi following celebrities to their homes or taking unsolicited photos of their kids would be seen as an abridgement of this right.
However, this is not a universal point of view. For some, celebrities forfeit their right to privacy when they pursue a career that is so high-profile. Since their careers are centered in the public spotlight, celebrities and public figures are expected to reveal details of their private lives when the public demands it. From this perspective, it would be within ethical boundaries for paparazzi to wait for an actor outside of a restaurant or for a writer to make exaggerated claims about a singer to get more clicks on their headline.
The invasive, exploitative, and dishonest nature of tabloid journalism goes against the Society of Professional Journalists’s code of ethics, which all journalists are meant to adhere to in order to best serve the public. The code states that, “Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information,” as well as treat people with respect, take responsibility, and minimize harm. Tabloid journalists harm the reputation and wellbeing of the people that they so carelessly write about, and they harm their readers who are buying into false or misleading information and having their perceptions of others warped.
In order for tabloid journalism to become an ethical profession, they would have to reframe the way that they cover news to fit in line with SPJ’s code of ethics. The individuals who work for the tabloids would have to recognize the damage that they do by reporting on celebrities and public figures unethically. They would need to change their entire news process – start sticking to the facts, attributing and sourcing information, and respecting other people’s privacy. If tabloid journalists take these ethics into consideration, the field has the potential to become respectable and beneficial to society.
This responsibility of becoming more ethical also lies on the consumer. The general public’s demand for juicy celebrity drama and the details of every public figure’s latest scandal is what drives tabloid journalists and paparazzi to do what they do. They make money off the invasive photographs and misleading headlines because consumers never stop paying for them. It is important for audiences to call out unethical journalism when they see it and not to feed the flames of shady tabloids. People can prove that they care more about the wellbeing of others than the latest celebrity gossip.
We need to stop allowing such an unethical industry to flourish. It is time that tabloids are held to the same standards as other journalistic professions and made to follow a code of ethics that stresses transparency, honesty, and respect – for the sake of everyone affected by their current unethical practices.